Latest news with #CommunityReinvestmentAct
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
FHLBank Atlanta and Synovus Bank award $500,000 grant to Georgia Heirs Property Law Center Inc.
ATLANTA, May 29, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta (FHLBank Atlanta) and Synovus Bank are delivering a $500,000 grant to Georgia Heirs Property Law Center Inc. The grant will be used to prevent and resolve heirs' property issues that arise when home or landowners leave their property to others without a clear will, estate plan, title or deed. Synovus and Georgia Heirs Property Law Center partnered to apply for the grant, which is awarded from FHLBank Atlanta's 2024 Heirs Property Family Wealth Protection Fund. In total, this program from FHLBank Atlanta is awarding $5.9 million through its member banks, such as Synovus, to 21 organizations addressing heirs' property issues. "A key part of our mission is to advance homeownership, and that includes helping families pass along the hard-earned equity they have built in their properties," said Kirk Malmberg, president and CEO of FHLBank Atlanta. "Heirs' property issues are a pervasive problem in many communities, and this fund will enable seasoned organizations to help thousands of families preserve and protect their inheritances." A 2024 Harris Poll survey sponsored by FHLBank Atlanta found that 90% of homeowners expect the equity in their homes to benefit their heirs, yet 43% do not have a will, trust or estate plan. FHLBank Atlanta created the Family Wealth Protection Fund to support organizations that help property owners by writing wills and estate plans or resolving existing tangled titles. "As a member of FHLBank Atlanta, we wanted to maximize their grant program to support Georgia Heirs Property Law Center with a significant grant to benefit people across the state," said Natalie Parker, senior director, Community Reinvestment Act and community development at Synovus. "The Georgia Heirs Property Law Center has a particular expertise in resolving tangled titles and ensuring the proper legal documents are in place for families to build generational wealth with their homes or land." "The Center helps grow Georgia's economy through property rights. Heirs' property not only limits a family's ability to build generational wealth but also undermines the efforts of local governments and businesses trying to revitalize communities. Partners like the FHLBank Atlanta and Synovus understand the value in leveraging direct legal services and asset education to empower low- and moderate-income families to address their heirs' property," said Skipper StipeMaas, executive director of the Center. Services delivered by organizations receiving grant funding are free to property owners. About Synovus Synovus Bank, a Georgia-chartered, FDIC-insured bank, provides commercial and consumer banking in addition to a full suite of specialized products and services, including wealth services, treasury management, mortgage services, premium finance, asset-based lending, structured lending, capital markets and international banking. Synovus has branches in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee. Synovus is a Great Place to Work-Certified Company. Learn more about Synovus at About The Georgia Heirs Property Law Center, Inc. The Georgia Heirs Property Law Center Inc, (the "Center") provides direct legal services that increase generational wealth, economic value, and community stability by securing and preserving property rights of low and moderate income Georgians. The Center resolves heirs property through title clearing; prevents heirs property through estate planning; and facilitates asset education to build generational wealth. For more information see, About FHLBank Atlanta FHLBank Atlanta offers competitively-priced financing, community development grants, and other banking services to help member financial institutions make affordable home mortgages and provide economic development credit to neighborhoods and communities. The Bank's members are commercial banks, credit unions, savings institutions, community development financial institutions, and insurance companies located in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. FHLBank Atlanta is one of 11 district Banks in the Federal Home Loan Bank System. Since 1990, the FHLBanks have awarded approximately $9.1 billion in Affordable Housing Program funds, assisting more than 1.2 million households. For more information, visit View source version on Contacts Audria BeltonSynovus Media Relationsmedia@ Sheryl TouchtonFederal Home Loan Bank of Atlantastouchton@
Business Wire
5 days ago
- Business
- Business Wire
FHLBank Atlanta and Synovus Bank award $500,000 grant to
ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta (FHLBank Atlanta) and Synovus Bank are delivering a $500,000 grant to Georgia Heirs Property Law Center Inc. The grant will be used to prevent and resolve heirs' property issues that arise when home or landowners leave their property to others without a clear will, estate plan, title or deed. Synovus and Georgia Heirs Property Law Center partnered to apply for the grant, which is awarded from FHLBank Atlanta's 2024 Heirs Property Family Wealth Protection Fund. In total, this program from FHLBank Atlanta is awarding $5.9 million through its member banks, such as Synovus, to 21 organizations addressing heirs' property issues. 'A key part of our mission is to advance homeownership, and that includes helping families pass along the hard-earned equity they have built in their properties,' said Kirk Malmberg, president and CEO of FHLBank Atlanta. 'Heirs' property issues are a pervasive problem in many communities, and this fund will enable seasoned organizations to help thousands of families preserve and protect their inheritances.' A 2024 Harris Poll survey sponsored by FHLBank Atlanta found that 90% of homeowners expect the equity in their homes to benefit their heirs, yet 43% do not have a will, trust or estate plan. FHLBank Atlanta created the Family Wealth Protection Fund to support organizations that help property owners by writing wills and estate plans or resolving existing tangled titles. 'As a member of FHLBank Atlanta, we wanted to maximize their grant program to support Georgia Heirs Property Law Center with a significant grant to benefit people across the state,' said Natalie Parker, senior director, Community Reinvestment Act and community development at Synovus. 'The Georgia Heirs Property Law Center has a particular expertise in resolving tangled titles and ensuring the proper legal documents are in place for families to build generational wealth with their homes or land.' 'The Center helps grow Georgia's economy through property rights. Heirs' property not only limits a family's ability to build generational wealth but also undermines the efforts of local governments and businesses trying to revitalize communities. Partners like the FHLBank Atlanta and Synovus understand the value in leveraging direct legal services and asset education to empower low- and moderate-income families to address their heirs' property,' said Skipper StipeMaas, executive director of the Center. Services delivered by organizations receiving grant funding are free to property owners. About Synovus Synovus Bank, a Georgia-chartered, FDIC-insured bank, provides commercial and consumer banking in addition to a full suite of specialized products and services, including wealth services, treasury management, mortgage services, premium finance, asset-based lending, structured lending, capital markets and international banking. Synovus has branches in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina and Tennessee. Synovus is a Great Place to Work-Certified Company. Learn more about Synovus at About The Georgia Heirs Property Law Center, Inc. The Georgia Heirs Property Law Center Inc, (the 'Center') provides direct legal services that increase generational wealth, economic value, and community stability by securing and preserving property rights of low and moderate income Georgians. The Center resolves heirs property through title clearing; prevents heirs property through estate planning; and facilitates asset education to build generational wealth. For more information see, About FHLBank Atlanta FHLBank Atlanta offers competitively-priced financing, community development grants, and other banking services to help member financial institutions make affordable home mortgages and provide economic development credit to neighborhoods and communities. The Bank's members are commercial banks, credit unions, savings institutions, community development financial institutions, and insurance companies located in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. FHLBank Atlanta is one of 11 district Banks in the Federal Home Loan Bank System. Since 1990, the FHLBanks have awarded approximately $9.1 billion in Affordable Housing Program funds, assisting more than 1.2 million households. For more information, visit
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Contributor: A Trump deregulator may set us up for a sequel to the 2008 crisis
The movie "The Big Short" — dramatizing the reckless behavior in the banking and mortgage industries that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis — captures much of Wall Street's misconduct but overlooks a central player in the collapse: the federal government, specifically through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These two government-created and government-sponsored enterprises encouraged lenders to issue risky home loans by effectively making taxpayers co-sign the mortgages. This setup incentivized dangerous lending practices that inflated the housing bubble, eventually leading to catastrophic economic consequences. Another critical but overlooked factor in the collapse was the Community Reinvestment Act. This federal law was intended to combat discriminatory lending practices but instead created substantial market distortions by pressuring banks to extend loans to borrowers who might otherwise have been deemed too risky. Under threat of regulatory penalties, banks significantly loosened lending standards — again, inflating the housing bubble. After the bubble inevitably burst, Fannie and Freddie were placed under conservatorship by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The conservatorship imposed rules aimed at preventing future taxpayer-funded bailouts and protecting the economy from government-fueled market distortions. Now, President Trump's appointee to lead that agency, Bill Pulte, is considering ending this conservatorship without addressing the core structural flaw that fueled the problem in the first place: implicit government guarantees backing all Fannie and Freddie mortgages. If Pulte proceeds without implementing real reform, taxpayers on Main Street are once again likely to be exposed to significant financial risks as they are conscripted into subsidizing lucrative deals for Wall Street. Without genuine reform, the incentives and practices that led to the crisis remain unchanged, setting the stage for a repeat disaster. Pulte's proposal isn't likely to unleash free-market policies. Instead, it could further rig the market in favor of hedge funds holding substantial stakes in Fannie and Freddie, allowing them to profit enormously from the potential upside, while leaving taxpayers to bear all the downside risks. A meaningful solution requires Fannie and Freddie to significantly strengthen their capital reserves. The two government-sponsored enterprises still remain dangerously undercapitalized. A report from JP Morgan Chase describes it this way: 'Despite steady growth in [their net worth], the GSEs remain well below the minimum regulatory capital framework requirements set by the Federal Housing Finance Agency in 2020.' Imposing robust capital requirements similar to those that govern private banks would oblige the two enterprises to internalize their risks, promoting genuine market discipline and accountability. Further reforms should address transparency and oversight. Enhanced disclosure standards would allow investors, regulators and the public to better assess risks. Additionally, limiting the types of mortgages these entities can guarantee could reduce exposure to the riskiest loans, further protecting taxpayers. Implementing clear rules that prevent Fannie and Freddie from venturing into speculative financial products would also mitigate potential market distortions. Critically, the federal government must clearly communicate that future bailouts are not an option. Explicitly removing government guarantees would compel Fannie and Freddie to operate responsibly, knowing that reckless behavior will lead to their insolvency, not to another taxpayer rescue. Clear legal separation from government backing is essential to prevent moral hazard. The combination of government guarantees, regulatory pressure from policies such as the Community Reinvestment Act and inadequate capital standards created the perfect storm for the 2008 financial crisis. Ignoring these lessons and repeating past mistakes would inevitably lead to a similar disaster. Proponents of prematurely releasing Fannie and Freddie argue that market conditions have changed and risk management has improved. Yet, history repeatedly demonstrates that without structural changes, financial entities — particularly those shielded by government guarantees — inevitably revert to risky behavior when market pressures and profit incentives align. Markets function best when participants bear the full consequences of their decisions, something impossible under the current structure of these government-sponsored enterprises. Ultimately, the only responsible approach is removing taxpayers from the equation entirely. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should participate in the mortgage market only as fully private entities, without any implicit government guarantees. The American public doesn't need a sequel to 'The Big Short.' The painful lessons of the 2008 crisis are too recent and too severe to be ignored or forgotten. Market discipline, fiscal responsibility and genuine reform — not government-backed risk-taking — must guide our approach going forward. We can only hope that the Trump administration chooses fiscal responsibility over risky experiments that history has already shown end in disaster. Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
5 days ago
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
A Trump deregulator may set us up for a sequel to the 2008 crisis
The movie 'The Big Short' — dramatizing the reckless behavior in the banking and mortgage industries that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis — captures much of Wall Street's misconduct but overlooks a central player in the collapse: the federal government, specifically through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These two government-created and government-sponsored enterprises encouraged lenders to issue risky home loans by effectively making taxpayers co-sign the mortgages. This setup incentivized dangerous lending practices that inflated the housing bubble, eventually leading to catastrophic economic consequences. Another critical but overlooked factor in the collapse was the Community Reinvestment Act. This federal law was intended to combat discriminatory lending practices but instead created substantial market distortions by pressuring banks to extend loans to borrowers who might otherwise have been deemed too risky. Under threat of regulatory penalties, banks significantly loosened lending standards — again, inflating the housing bubble. After the bubble inevitably burst, Fannie and Freddie were placed under conservatorship by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The conservatorship imposed rules aimed at preventing future taxpayer-funded bailouts and protecting the economy from government-fueled market distortions. Now, President Trump's appointee to lead that agency, Bill Pulte, is considering ending this conservatorship without addressing the core structural flaw that fueled the problem in the first place: implicit government guarantees backing all Fannie and Freddie mortgages. If Pulte proceeds without implementing real reform, taxpayers on Main Street are once again likely to be exposed to significant financial risks as they are conscripted into subsidizing lucrative deals for Wall Street. Without genuine reform, the incentives and practices that led to the crisis remain unchanged, setting the stage for a repeat disaster. Pulte's proposal isn't likely to unleash free-market policies. Instead, it could further rig the market in favor of hedge funds holding substantial stakes in Fannie and Freddie, allowing them to profit enormously from the potential upside, while leaving taxpayers to bear all the downside risks. A meaningful solution requires Fannie and Freddie to significantly strengthen their capital reserves. The two government-sponsored enterprises still remain dangerously undercapitalized. A report from JP Morgan Chase describes it this way: 'Despite steady growth in [their net worth], the GSEs remain well below the minimum regulatory capital framework requirements set by the Federal Housing Finance Agency in 2020.' Imposing robust capital requirements similar to those that govern private banks would oblige the two enterprises to internalize their risks, promoting genuine market discipline and accountability. Further reforms should address transparency and oversight. Enhanced disclosure standards would allow investors, regulators and the public to better assess risks. Additionally, limiting the types of mortgages these entities can guarantee could reduce exposure to the riskiest loans, further protecting taxpayers. Implementing clear rules that prevent Fannie and Freddie from venturing into speculative financial products would also mitigate potential market distortions. Critically, the federal government must clearly communicate that future bailouts are not an option. Explicitly removing government guarantees would compel Fannie and Freddie to operate responsibly, knowing that reckless behavior will lead to their insolvency, not to another taxpayer rescue. Clear legal separation from government backing is essential to prevent moral hazard. The combination of government guarantees, regulatory pressure from policies such as the Community Reinvestment Act and inadequate capital standards created the perfect storm for the 2008 financial crisis. Ignoring these lessons and repeating past mistakes would inevitably lead to a similar disaster. Proponents of prematurely releasing Fannie and Freddie argue that market conditions have changed and risk management has improved. Yet, history repeatedly demonstrates that without structural changes, financial entities — particularly those shielded by government guarantees — inevitably revert to risky behavior when market pressures and profit incentives align. Markets function best when participants bear the full consequences of their decisions, something impossible under the current structure of these government-sponsored enterprises. Ultimately, the only responsible approach is removing taxpayers from the equation entirely. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should participate in the mortgage market only as fully private entities, without any implicit government guarantees. The American public doesn't need a sequel to 'The Big Short.' The painful lessons of the 2008 crisis are too recent and too severe to be ignored or forgotten. Market discipline, fiscal responsibility and genuine reform — not government-backed risk-taking — must guide our approach going forward. We can only hope that the Trump administration chooses fiscal responsibility over risky experiments that history has already shown end in disaster. Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NJ bank's CRA rating upgraded in wake of redlining case
OceanFirst Bank in New Jersey has earned the highest possible Community Reinvestment Act rating less than a year after settling federal charges related to alleged discriminatory lending practices. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency gave the bank an "outstanding" rating on its most recent CRA exam, which covered the 2021-2023 period. That was a sharp improvement from the "needs to improve" rating OceanFirst received for the prior three-year period. Christopher Maher, chairman and CEO of the bank and its parent company, OceanFirst Financial, told American Banker that the latest CRA rating was the result of "a significant effort" to introduce the bank's lending products in markets it entered via acquisitions between 2015 to 2020. The 2018 acquisition of Sun Bancorp in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, was particularly challenging because Sun had discontinued all of its consumer lending, creating "a little bit of a lag" in ramping up OceanFirst's lending in the markets that Sun had served, Maher said. "We just had the bad timing that the last CRA exam fell during those acquisitions," Maher said. OceanFirst's latest CRA rating comes about two years after it received the "needs to improve" rating for the 2018-2020 examination period. Prior to that rating, the $13.3 billion-asset bank received a "satisfactory" grade, a result that followed nine consecutive "outstanding" ratings from the OCC. In September 2024, OceanFirst entered into settlement agreements with the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The DOJ's complaint alleged that from 2018 through at least 2022, OceanFirst did not provide mortgage lending services to predominantly Black, Hispanic and Asian neighborhoods in Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean counties — and discouraged people looking for credit in those communities from getting home loans. The bank agreed to pay more than $15 million to resolve the redlining claims. In the OCC's latest exam report, the agency provided several reasons for its improved rating of OceanFirst, saying that the bank's lending levels "reflected excellent responsiveness" to credit needs, particularly in the New York City-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area. The OCC also stated that the bank "exhibited an excellent geographic distribution of loans" in that region, as well as "a good distribution of loans" among individuals with different income levels and among businesses of different sizes. The report also described OceanFirst as a "leader" in making community development loans. The OCC's most recent review of OceanFirst and its affiliates did not uncover any discriminatory or other illegal credit practices, according to the exam report. In last year's settlements, OceanFirst agreed to add at least $14 million to a loan subsidy fund to increase access to home mortgage, home improvement and home refinance loans for residents of majority-Black, Hispanic and Asian neighborhoods in Middlesex, Monmouth, and Ocean also agreed to open a loan production office and to spend $700,000 on advertising, outreach, consumer financial education, and credit counseling focused on predominantly Black, Hispanic, and Asian neighborhoods in those counties. Maher said OceanFirst will continue doing "community walk-abouts," in which the bank's senior leadership team meets with community members in disadvantaged neighborhoods to better understand their banking needs. As a result of those walks, the bank has tailored some of its products to meet community needs and hired more employees with multilingual skills, he said. On Tuesday, New Jersey Citizens Action, a statewide advocacy organization, gave credit to OceanFirst for working to improve its CRA rating. Leila Amirhamzeh, the group's director of community reinvestment, said in an email that "it is clear … that OceanFirst Bank has been actively reaching out to and partnering with community-based organizations to better meet the needs of the low- and moderate-income communities in Middlesex, Monmouth and Ocean counties." Still, the group remains concerned with what Amirhamzeh characterized as "inflation of CRA exam ratings, as performance evaluations don't accurately reflect the granular data we see with regard to underserved communities." Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
