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Showing posts from July, 2013

'Minority' Bank Designation Has Become Meaningless

We note with interest the designation of Urban Partnership Bank as a Minority Depository Institution. According to Crain’s Chicago Business, “The $1 billion-asset bank based on Chicago's South Side (formerly South Shore Bank) is officially a minority lender despite an ownership dominated by Wall Street giants like Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.” ( http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130611/NEWS01/130619972/wall-street-owned-urban-partnership-bank-officially-a-minority-bank ) A Minority Depository Institution, as defined by Section 308 of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 ("FIRREA"), used to be a bank in which 51% or more of the common stock was owned by one or more members of the following groups: Black American, Asian American, Hispanic American, or Native American . The threshold now for MDI designation is a bank that meets one or more of the following standards: 1.        51% or