Trump Financial Regulator Ends Discrimination Probes Into Redlining By Banks

Redlining: If you’re not sure of what it is, google it. One of the many ways that racism and discrimination still exist.

Since Trump took office, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has quietly shelved at least six investigations of discrimination and redlining....  The OCC has historically prioritized the well-being of banks over bank customers, said current and former examiners, but the balance has shifted even further under the Trump administration.

The abandoned...inquir[ies are] part of a larger, previously unreported pattern in which the Trump administration has pulled back on civil rights enforcement as a part of its overall relaxation of bank oversight.

We can’t take the corruption anymore.

Career staff and ordinary agency employees who have raised alarms about discrimination and other consumer abuses have seen their concerns brushed aside by the agency’s leadership...

The OCC was run from November 2017 until May of this year by Joseph Otting, a former bank executive with ties to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

In each case, despite staff recommendations that fines or other penalties be imposed, the OCC took no public action and closed the investigations quietly. In the past, banks have had to pay substantial sums after similar investigations.

Let's step back and explain the OCC for a moment.

The OCC is the grandaddy of banking regulators, conceived under Abraham Lincoln to make sure banks were safe and sound, and it has a unique role in fighting discrimination. The OCC is responsible for checking that national banks comply with the landmark Fair Housing Act of 1968, which banned redlining.

The agency also has a key role enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act, which requires banks to lend in poor neighborhoods and grades banks on how well they meet the goals of the law. Otting spent much of his two and a half years in office rewriting the rules for the CRA, and he stepped down the day after he unveiled a reform plan that gives banks more flexibility in satisfying the law.

For shame!

Homeownership remains a key path to building family wealth in America, but the homeownership rate among blacks is 44 percent compared to whites at 74 percent...

One major obstacle to narrowing that gap is discrimination in mortgage lending. A 2019 study by the Consumer Financial Bureau found that white borrowers are more likely to get a home loan than Black borrowers with the same credit score.

Read more details at our source: https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-financial-regulator-quietly-shelved-discrimination-probes-into-bank-of-america-and-other-lenders