FDIC Tells Five Banks to Improve CRA Ratings

Five community banks, including one in Boston that is a designated community development lender, have received "needs to improve" ratings on their most recent Community Reinvestment Act examinations.

The five banks are OneUnited Bank in Boston, Bank of Hamilton in North Dakota, St. Casimir's Savings Bank in Baltimore, and two Texas banks, Fort Davis State Bank and United Central Bank in Garland.

The ratings were assigned in October and made public last week in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s monthly list of banks examined for CRA compliance. Apart from the five rated "needs to improve," five others received "outstanding" ratings and 54 received "satisfactory" grades.

OneUnited's "needs to improve" rating is particularly noteworthy because the $560 million-asset bank is a certified community development financial institution whose primary mission is to make loans in its communities. The minority-owned bank has also been under a microscope for its ties to two prominent Congressional Democrats, Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Maxine Waters of California, who critics say used their influence to help OneUnited obtain $12 million from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

According to state and federal regulators, OneUnited made only five loans — all home mortgages — in Massachusetts between April 2007 and October 2010. While regulators noted that the economic conditions had weakened the bank during that period and that OneUnited had been operating under an enforcement order, “these factors do not fully explain, or justify, the bank’s failure to meet the standards for a ‘satisfactory’ rating," the FDIC said.

In Florida, where OneUnited has two branches, the bank received a "substantial noncompliance" rating because it made just three loans in the state during the entire examination period.

OneUnited's general counsel, Robert P. Cooper, told the Boston Globe Monday that the bank's lending has improved substantially since the review period ended more than a year ago. He added that the bank was prudent to scale back its lending during the financial crisis.

The largest of the banks to receive a "needs to improve" rating was the $2.6 billion United Central, which has lending operations in eight states. Though the bank received a "satisfactory" rating on most of CRA tests, regulators said they found "substantive violations" of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. That 1974 law, also known as Regulation B, prohibits banks from discriminating based on a loan applicant's race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.