I submitted comments to the OCC about its proposed rulemaking regarding Fair Access to Financial Services. I previously blogged on the topic here and here. There are a LOT of problems in this poorly thought-through rulemaking, starting with whether there is even statutory authority, continuing to its myriad inconsistencies with safety-and-soundness (and thank goodness for President Trump, who provides many helpful examples), going on to First Amendment problems, and then wrapping up with an antitrust analysis that would flunk any antitrust course—it doesn't even define a relevant product market! Sigh.
Category: Financial Institutions
-
Figure’s National Banking Charter Application: Illegal and Bad Policy
Posted by
It's not every day that I write a letter in opposition to the issuance of a bank charter. But that's what I just did. Here is my comment letter to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in opposition to the charter application for Figure, which is seeking to operate an uninsured national bank. Not only is that not legally permitted, but issuing such a charter would be jaw-droppingly terrible policy from both a safety-and-soundness and consumer protection standpoint. I often disagree with the OCC only policy issues, but chartering an uninsured national bank goes far beyond any reasonable policy position.
There are lots of reasons to be concerned about Figure's application on its own, but what really worries me is that Figure will be the camel's nose under the tent. If it's possible to get a national banking charter without being an insured depository or subject to the Bank Holding Company Act or the Community Reinvestment Act, ever tech company and its mother is going to be lining up to become a national bank.
-
Commercial and Contract Law: Questions, Ideas, Jargon
Posted by
In the Spring I am teaching a research and writing seminar called Advanced Commercial Law and Contracts. Credit Slips readers have been important resources for project ideas in the past, and I'd appreciate hearing what you have seen out in the world on which you wish there was more research, and/or what you think might make a great exploration for an enterprising student. This course is not centered on bankruptcy, but things that happen in bankruptcy unearth puzzles from commercial and contract law more generally, so examples from bankruptcy cases are indeed welcome. You can share ideas through the comments below, by email to me, or direct message on Twitter.
Also, I am considering having the students build another wiki of jargon as I did a few years ago in another course. Please pass along your favorite (or least favorite) terms du jour in commercial finance and beyond.
Thank you as always for your input, especially during such chaotic times.
-
The OCC Stands Up for Fossil Fuels, Gun Makers, Opioid Manufacturers, and Payday Lenders
Posted by
Those wascally wabbits at OCC are back at it again in the waning light of the Trumpshchina. The OCC has proposed a rule on "Fair Access to Financial Services."
The gist of the rule is that banks cannot deny service to business based on the bank's opinion of "the person's legal business endeavors, or any lawful activity in which the person is engaging or has engaged." Instead, the bank may deny service only based on "quantified and documented failure to meet quantitative, impartial, risk-based standards established in advance by the covered bank".
This means that if a bank has moral qualms about financing the fossil fuel industry, opioid manufacturers, firearm manufacturers, payday lenders, reproductive health services, pornographers, gay conversion therapy, fur farming, makers of drug paraphernalia, the private prison industry, or businesses involved in the deportation of immigrants, to give a range of examples of businesses that pose serious reputational risk to banks (and very direct financial risk in some instances), well, too bad. Unless the bank can show that the borrower doesn't meet quantitative, impartial, risk-based underwriting standards, it must lend because these are all legal industries. Is it like that any bank will ever have "quantitative, impartial, risk-based underwriting standards" regarding a particular disfavored industry? The standard for denial of service is near impossible to meet, as it seems to require some sort of empirically grounded underwriting by industry that banks are unlikely to have.
Put another way, the OCC's proposed rule says reputation risk doesn't matter. That's insane. It's a quite reasonable business decision for a bank to say that it doesn't want to be known as the bank that financed school shootings or consumer lending products that it would never offer itself. A bank might reasonably fear that it would lose a chunk of its deposit base if it became known as the go-to bank for a controversial industry. If you don't think reputation risk matters, look at the law firms that have been dropping President Trump's election appeals like a hot potato. They are terrified that they are going to lose other clients who don't want to be associated with those efforts. All the more so with a bank, where depositors are literally financing the loans.
-
OCC Suggests “Fair Access” Rulemaking to Require Banks to Finance the Oil and Gas Industry
Posted by
Just when you think it can't get more ridiculous… The Office of Comptroller of the Currency, which hasn't taken racially discriminatory lending seriously, is concerned about banks' discriminatory refusal to serve the oil and gas industry. In fact, the OCC is so concerned that it is suggesting legal theories so farfetched that would be laughed out of a courtroom if it actually tried to act on them.
The underlying issue here is that banks seem have gotten cold feet about financing fossil fuels. Why? Any number of reasons, including that their investors don't like it (ESG), that global warming threatens their own balance sheets, that oil and gas prices right now are so low that investment in the sector might not be a good business move, and that there's huge risk to fossil fuel projects' value based on the 2020 election outcome. But Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska wants to drill in the Arctic and has expressed concern about banks' unwillingness to fund global warming to the OCC.
In response, the Acting Comptroller of the Currency, Brian Brooks, wrote a letter to Senator Sullivan that can only be described as verging on legal malpractice in the service of political expediency while pushing a vision of economic regulation that looks like communist China.
Acting Comptroller Brooks argues that 12 U.S.C. § 1(a):
requires the OCC to ensure that banks provide "fair access" to financial services. Decisions by major banks to deny the oil and gas sector, among other targeted industries, access to financial services may violate that statute. Accordingly, the OCC will examine the possibility of issuing regulations defining fair access to provide clarity to banks and customers alike.
Let's take a look at 12 U.S.C. § 1. The relevant section states:
There is established in the Department of the Treasury a bureau to be known as the “Office of the Comptroller of the Currency” which is charged with assuring the safety and soundness of, and compliance with laws and regulations, fair access to financial services, and fair treatment of customers by, the institutions and other persons subject to its jurisdiction.
12 USC 1 is a general expressive statement of the general purposes of the OCC. It's not even a "be excellent to each other" sort of exhortation. It is not by any stretch a provision creating any substantive rights or obligations. If OCC tried to use this as the basis for a "fair access" rulemaking, as Brooks suggests, the rulemaking would get thrown out by a court on an APA challenge in a hot minute. 12 USC 1 authorizes the OCC to do precisely nothing.
Whatever 12 USC 1 is, it is not a roving commission for the OCC to undertake rulemakings about "fair access" and "fair treatment", etc. It is not a free-standing authorization to undertake any sort of rulemaking. It is very plainly not a delegation by Congress. Furthermore, the suggestion that "Decisions by major banks to deny the oil and gas sector … access to financial services may violate that statute" is risible. 12 USC 1 is at most an obligation on the OCC, not on banks. It's embarrassing to see the OCC put forth such a legal argument.
Note that what Brooks is proposing is the flip-side of the allegations made against Operation Chokepoint, namely that regulators were discouraging banks from lending to certain disfavored industries. Now Brooks is talking about forcing banks to lend to certain favored industries. That sounds like … communist China. It makes my head spin.
(btw, where are the conservatives who bitch about affordable housing goals and the CRA? Aren't they up in arms that a financial regulator is talking about forcing banks to lend to someone?)
But let's say that I'm wrong and Brooks is right. Consider the implications. Imagine what a Comptroller with a different political tinge might have with provisions such as "fair treatment of customers" and "fair access to financial services". Who needs UDAAP when you've got "fair treatment"? Who needs CRA, when you've got "fair access"? If Brooks wants to weaponize 12 USC 1, he might want to first recognize that "fair" is a word that progressives can do a lot more with than he can.
-
No More Bailouts
Posted by
I have a new white paper out from the Roosevelt Institute's Great Democracy Initiative. The paper, which is co-authored with Lindsay Owens and Ganesh Sitaraman, proposes a standing emergency economic stabilization authority to provide an off-the-shelf immediately available response to common problems that recur in national economic crises.
The motivation for the white paper is that in the past dozen years we've been through two rounds of massive ad hoc bailouts. We shouldn't be doing this on the fly. Instead, we need to have a suite of programs ready to go. Think of this as an "in case of emergency, break glass" approach.
-
How to Start Closing the Racial Wealth Gap
Posted by
I have an article out in The American Prospect about How to Start Closing the Racial Wealth Gap. Unlike a lot of writing bemoaning the racial wealth gap, this piece has a concrete reform that could be undertaken on day 1 of a Biden administration without any need for legislation or even notice-and-comment rulemaking. The article points the disparate impact of an obscure, but enormous indirect fee on mortgage borrowers that the Federal Housing Finance Agency has required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to charge since 2007. The fee is structured in a way that disadvantages borrowers with fewer resources and lower credit scores, which has a disparate impact on borrowers of color. (I'm not saying it's an ECOA violation–that's a different analytical matter.) The fee was adopted in response to a competitive environment in 2007 that doesn't exist today; there's really no good reason for the fee to exist any more.
-
The Great American Housing Bubble
Posted by
My new book, The Great American Housing Bubble: What Went Wrong and How We Can Protect Ourselves in the Future was just released by Harvard University Press. The book is co-authored with my long-time collaborator, Wharton real estate economist Susan Wachter. It's the culmination of over a decade's worth of work on housing finance that began in the scramble of fall 2008 to come up with ways of assisting hard-pressed homeowners.
-
The Brown M&M Theory of Telltale Minor Regulatory Violations or What’s Wrong with “Earn a savings rate 5X the national average”?
Posted by
A CapitalOne savings account ad has got me thinking about whether Van Halen has anything to teach regulators. Van Halen is famous for its use of a contract that requires provision of M&Ms for the band, but expressly prohibits provision of any brown M&Ms. It’s not that they taste different, of course, but that if a concert promoter fails to adhere to the brown M&M term in the contract, it’s a red flag that there might be other more serious problems, so the band will undertake a safety check of the stage and equipment.
So what does this have to do with CapOne? I’m one of the few folks in the world who bothers to teach the Truth in Savings Act, so I’m probably more inclined to pay attention to deposit account advertising than most folks. I was about to throw out an early May issue of The Economist (yes, my tastes run distinctly to middle brow), when a CapitalOne ad caught my eye.
The ad, which I’ve posted to the right says, “Why settle for average? Earn a savings rate 5X the national average.” In smaller, less bold font it then says “Open a new savings account in about 5 minutes and earn 5X the national average.” Under that, in smaller, but bold, “This is Banking Reimagined®.” Faint, fine print on the bottom says “ONLY NEW ACCOUNTS FOR CONSUMERS. RATE COMPARISON BASED ON FDIC NATIONAL RATE FOR SAVINGS BALANCE < $100,000. OFFERED BY CAPITAL ONE, N.A. MEMBER FDIC © 2019 CAPITAL ONE” Above this is a photo featuring some random dude (or celebrity I don’t recognize) with a croissant and coffee and faux casual outfit (jeans and a t-shirt, but a jacket with a pocket square) inviting the reader to join him. Breakfast and banking perhaps? But in the background, over his shoulder is a sign that says “Savings Rate 5X National Average” (its hard to read in the original, and doesn’t come across in my photo, unfortunately).
So what’s the problem here?
-
PPP Loan Fees for Banks
Posted by
$10 billion of CARES Act funds are going to the banks, especially megabanks, in fees for making “small” business PPP loans. The fees established by Congress, to be paid by the Small Business Administration, i.e. Treasury, range from 1% for loans above $2 million to 5% for loans below $350,000.
The maximum loan amount is $10 million, so those loans generate a nifty $100,000 fee each. At least 40 large public companies received loans from $1 to $10 million.
Given the highly streamlined application process, these fees likely far exceed the costs of originating these loans. The 1% interest rate, while low, still exceeds bank cost of funds. Do the banks need a bailout? First quarter earnings reports for the largest banks show steep drops in earnings, but earnings are still positive. The earnings drop is entirely due to provisioning for expected loan losses; obviously predicting loan performance over the next year is a very tricky business. Nevertheless, the PPP fee structure is designed to subsidize financial institutions not especially in need of a bailout, especially compared to restaurants, main street stores, and other small businesses. In fact, given that SBA is waiving the guarantee fee, why don’t the banks just waive the fees and interest on these loans? And given the robust public subsidies to megabanks, why should SBA pay these fees in the first place? If banks have inadequate capital to weather the coming storm, surely there is a better way to support them than having SBA pay these arbitrary PPP loan fees.