On Wednesday, November 20th, the Clinton Foundation hosted the "Economic Inclusion and Growth: The Way Forward" conference at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the CDFI Fund and to honor the leaders of the CDFI industry. At the conference, Former President Bill Clinton recognized CDBA CEO Jeannine Jacokes by discussing her role as the leader of the trade association for CDFI banks, as well as a leader in the loan fund space as the CEO of Partners for the Common Good (PCG). Specifically, he lauded the recent work of CDBA and PCG on the Impact at Scale Initiative, the first industry training program focused on large-scale impact.

The US Department of Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund today awarded $31.37 million to 43 community development banks and bank holding companies through its CDFI Program and Native American CDFI Assistance (NACA) Program Awards. With the awards, these banks will provide much-needed capital investments to small businesses and other critical community development projects such as affordable housing, neighborhood revitalization, and expansion into new geographic markets. The CDFI Program awards include Financial Assistance (FA), Technical Assistance (TA), Disability Funds, and the Healthy Food Financing Initiative.

Expanding its presence into New Jersey and New York, Washington, D.C.-based Industrial Bank has acquired City National Bank of New Jersey, based in Newark. The deal means Industrial Bank will pick up two City National branches in Newark and one in Harlem, New York. The transaction came after City National Bank failed and was shut down on Nov. 1 by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The regulator appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as a receiver. City National’s operations were sold to Industrial Bank, which acquired City National’s deposits along with essentially all of its assets.

In the 1980s, Michael Milken embodied Wall Street greed. A swashbuckling financier, he was charged with playing a central role in a vast insider-trading scheme and was sent to prison for violating federal securities and tax laws. He was an inspiration for the Gordon Gekko character in the film "Wall Street." Mr. Milken has spent the intervening decades trying to rehabilitate his reputation through an influential nonprofit think tank, the Milken Institute, devoted to initiatives “that advance prosperity.” These days, the Milken Institute is a leading proponent of a new federal tax break that was intended to coax wealthy investors to plow money into distressed communities known as “opportunity zones.” The institute’s leaders have helped push senior officials in the Trump administration to make the tax incentive more generous, even though it is under fire for being slanted toward the wealthy. Mr. Milken, it turns out, is in a position to personally gain from some of the changes that his institute has urged the Trump administration to enact. In one case, the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, directly intervened in a way that benefited Mr. Milken, his longtime friend.