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To the editor: Your article describes efforts to investigate Wells Fargo for predatory practices. This latest fine against Wells Fargo highlights industry-wide practices that have resulted in billions of dollars in fines in recent years. But, as a banker focusing on low-income communities, I don’t believe these fines are eliminating unwanted behaviors.
Carver Federal Savings Bank CEO Michael T. Pugh was recently interviewed on The Karen Hunter Show, which airs on SiriusXM Urban View, Channel 126. During the interview, Mr. Pugh spoke with Karen Hunter about the challenges and opportunities that Black-managed banks face and how important a bank’s Community Reinvestment Act (“CRA”) Rating is to determining whether that bank is providing loan capital to the communities it operates in.
Community bankers are sensing a chance to poach clients from Wells Fargo as the financial giant struggles with a phony-account scandal.
The Financial CHOICE Act would change the CFPB’s structure and regulatory power, and would help community financial institutions by ending Operation Choke Point.
Durham-based M&F Bank has made the decision to de-list from the Nasdaq and withdraw its common stock from registration. In a securities filing Tuesday, the company said the decision came down to several factors, including the “significant cost” of filing periodic reports and complying with regulatory rules. According to the disclosure, the company will continue to publish “selected financial information” and quarterly earnings reports on its website.
Banks, weighing factors that include cost-efficient underwriting, keeping credit losses under control, and regulators' caution on products such as deposit advance, struggle to create workable credit products that meet the short-term borrowing needs of low- and moderate-income customers. This prevents those customers from climbing the traditional bank credit ladder, and drives them to seek other options. Consequently, the landscape is saturated with more than 50,000 alternative financial services storefronts and websites that include check cashers, auto title lenders, pawnshops and the like. These alternative lenders are often labeled "fringe," but one in four households use them regularly.
Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow coined the term, conscious uncoupling. Nichol Beckstrand, President of Sunrise Banks, talks in terms of conscious coupling and poses a challenge for fin tech and financial institutions. Join Nichol as she kicks off PayThink 2016 and challenges the audience with real life examples of how Sunrise Banks has taken innovation and driven this mission focused bank from Minneapolis/St. Paul into a national limelight.
PayThink is focused on the important inter-connected markets of debit, prepaid, mobile, digital payments and ATM. Every year, innovative leaders from across the industry come together to share best practices and identify profitable growth strategies.
Southern Bancorp CEO, Darrin Williams, was recently presented the Supporting Organization of the Year award on behalf of Southern Bancorp for the community development bank’s efforts to support minority business growth from the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce during Minority Enterprise Development Week.
The rallying cry emerged after a summer that saw the nation, once again, engaged in discussions about race, policing, and inequality. Instead of just taking to the streets after the deaths of black men at the hands of police and the subsequent murder of officers, protesters were urged — through hashtags like #bankblack and #blackdollarsmatter — to deposit $100 each into black-owned banks. And for Boston-based OneUnited Bank, the nation’s largest black-owned bank, the impact of the “Bank Black” movement was almost immediate. The bank, which has struggled in recent years, added more than $10 million in deposits in less than a month, said Teri Williams, the bank’s president.
Banking in St. Paul is easy. Or at least when compared to Los Angeles, where David Reiling worked for First Interstate Bank fresh out of college. “The first two weeks I was there, the bank I was in got robbed three times,” Reiling said. That didn’t deter him, though. Reiling has made a career out of working in inner-city banks, finding his stride in developing communities through financial services. He’s been with St. Paul-based Sunrise Banks, which aims to bring financial empowerment to underserved populations, for 20 years. For the past 12 years he’s been CEO.