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In the News
What Silicon Valley Bank’s Collapse Says About Banking And Community
By Oscar Perry Abello for NextCity | MARCH 13, 2023 — Focusing on wealthy people and their startup investments is not a sign of good risk management at a bank. Banking has never been about avoiding risk. It’s about managing risk. For years, especially...
Will a public bank prove recession-proof for East Bay cities?
By KATIE LAUER for SiliconValley.com | February 26, 2023 — Financial lending would focus on affordable housing, small business, green energy and municipal finance Image above: Trader Michael Gallucci works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange,...
Local Governments’ Vital Role in Getting Small Businesses the Funding They Need
Opinion by Ilana Preuss for Governing.com | February 14, 2023 — Due to racial bias and other disparities, too often they aren’t “bankable” and struggle to obtain loans essential for their success. Some programs are leading the way in achieving more-equitable...
First New Black Bank In 20 Years Breaks The Mold For Raising Startup Capital
By Oscar Perry Abello for NextCity | February 14, 2023 Adelphi Bank in Columbus, which raised $20 million in startup capital, marks the country’s first new Black bank since 2003. Jordan Miller never thought it was in the cards for him to help start a new...
In 16 Years, the Fed Has Approved 4,506 Bank Mergers and Denied One
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens for Wall Street On Parade | January 19, 2023 On Tuesday, Jerome Powell’s Federal Reserve once again thumbed its nose at President Biden’s antitrust directive regarding the creation of more mega banks through merger. This time...
Racial bias in L.A. home loans – City National Bank reaches $31m settlement with DOJ
By Michael Finnegan for Los Angeles Times | January 12, 2023 City National Bank has agreed to pay $31 million to settle a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit alleging racial bias in its home mortgage lending in Los Angeles County. The government’s complaint,...
A Policy Renaissance Is Needed for Rural America to Thrive
By Tony Pipa, senior fellow at the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution. Opinion in New York Times | December 27, 2022 (Emphasis by AFLEP) In what has become a postelection tradition, there has been no shortage of analysis the past several...
Millions of ‘unbanked’ Americans lack adequate access to financial services
By Paul Solman & Diane Lincoln Estes, PBS News Hour | December 26, 2022 It's not well known, but about 4.5% of U.S. households are unbanked, meaning no one in the house has a checking or savings account. The rate declined during the pandemic because people...
Community-Owned Commercial Real Estate Is Having A Moment
By OSCAR PERRY ABELLO at NEXT CITY Earlier this year, Crystal Ortiz started walking up and down Kensington Avenue looking for a proper storefront she could rent out for her growing business. When she found it right down the street, she was delighted that she didn’t...
Daily Yonder Q&A: How Public Banks Can Keep Revenue Local and Support Small Communities
by Claire Carlson, The Daily Yonder September 23, 2022 This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. A public bank is a financial institution that is managed by the government in the public interest, which is...
Upcoming Events
The Next Generation Water Summit brings together the building and development community, water reuse professionals and water policymakers in a collaborative setting to share best practices and learn about innovative water conservation and water reuse techniques that can be used to comply with water conservation restrictions spreading across the southwest.
Wells Fargo Rejected Half Its Black Applicants in Mortgage Refinancing Boom
March 10, 2022 | by Shawn Donnan, Ann Choi, Hannah Levitt and Christopher Cannon
When Mauise Ricard III paid a $560.43 application fee to Wells Fargo & Co. on Valentine’s Day in 2020 to refinance his mortgage on a four-bedroom brick colonial in a leafy suburb of Atlanta, he had every reason to expect an easy ride. The Microsoft Corp. engineer is married to a doctor and has a credit score north of 800, putting him in America’s credit elite. The loan officer at the bank even told him he was probably eligible for a fast-track appraisal.
SEED NM 2022 Symposium: Bob Mang on how business guilds can regenerate communities
SEED NM 2022 Symposium: Bob Mang on how business guilds can regenerate communities
Bob Mang, Re-Genesis Inc, Co-Founder (Retired) and AFLEP Board member, talks about rural economic development and how business guilds can regenerate communities.
Episode: Everyone deserves a public bank
“I had the good fortune to work on this initiative before Bernie kidnapped all my time. This is one of those no-brainer initiatives that only the 1% could oppose. It has the potential to save the state millions of dollars by vastly reducing the cost of its bonds to improve infrastructure funding. in a public bank, our state funds can be used to build our local economy and our local infrastructure.”
– Paul Gibson
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