Lending – Trillium Asset Management

Payday Lending – Fifth Third Bancorp (2013)

November 26, 2012

WHEREAS Predatory lending like payday loans have received significant public criticism for their high interest rates and rates of repeat borrowing. Our company is extending high-cost direct deposit advances that resemble payday loans and could expose customers to a costly “debt trap”. We believe these advances present serious hazards to Fifth Third’s most financially vulnerable customers and to the company itself. Fifth Third (“FITB”) charges $10 for each $100 borrowed through direct deposit advance. Loans are repaid automatically, in full, out of the customer’s next direct deposit. Research from the Center for Responsible Lending demonstrates that the typical user of …

Trillium Asks Regulators to Stop Banks from Making Payday Loans

March 1, 2012

Trillium Asset Management, along with 250 national, state and local organizations and individuals, has recently sent a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, The Federal Reserve Board, the FDIC and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency asking the regulators to stop banks from making predatory payday loans, which can carry annual interest rates of nearly 400%. The letter focuses on deposit “advance” loans which banks structure like loans from payday lenders. These loans are high-cost and have a short-term balloon repayment, trapping low-wealth and low-income borrowers in a cycle of expensive and increasing debt, causing serious financial …

Financial Reform Hits the Skids

February 25, 2010

Jonas Kron In March of this year, in the depths of the market sell-off, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner appeared before the House Financial Services Committee to discuss the need to fix the nation’s financial regulatory system. Geithner told the committee “Our system failed in fundamental ways,” and to “address this will require comprehensive reform. Not modest repairs at the margin, but new rules of the game.” This conclusion was echoed by Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), chairman of the committee. “The days of light-touch regulation are over,” he said. The implications of the crisis went even further. As New York …

Goldman Sachs – Loan Servicing Policy and Report (2009)

February 25, 2009

WHEREAS Our corporation is one of the largest servicers of subprime and other alternative housing loans with servicing rights of about $54 billion of subprime loans as of the end of June and with other purchases from Fremont General in June and about $1.2 billion of loans and servicing rights from Popular Inc in September. The Mortgage Metrics Report of the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for major servicers under their supervision shows over 11 % of subprime loans were seriously delinquent. Of these seriously delinquent loans of lenders supervised by them, …

Countrywide Financial – Report on the Subprime Mortgage Resets (2008)

January 23, 2008

WHEREAS Whereas the problems resulting from poor subprime lending safeguards are having negative impacts on our company, millions of homeowners, our national economy, and global financial markets. Subprime borrowers in adjustable rate mortgages may face unaffordable loan payments following rate resets, resulting in payment delinquency, foreclosure proceedings, and the loss of homes, negatively affecting communities, borrowers’ credit ratings, and their ability to purchase a home in the future. Subprime adjustable rate mortgages worth almost $600 billion are expected to experience rate resets by the end of 2008. Credit Suisse predicts that between August 2007 and July 2009, one million subprime …