{"id":123,"date":"2013-12-17T18:11:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-17T18:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/?p=123"},"modified":"2013-12-17T18:11:00","modified_gmt":"2013-12-17T18:11:00","slug":"transparency-in-banking-december-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/?p=123","title":{"rendered":"Transparency in banking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"BBA\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bba.org.uk\/media\/article\/british-lenders-set-out-levels-of-borrowing-across-country-in-major-move-fo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The announcement on 17 December 2013<\/a>, by the British Bankers\u2019 Association (<a title=\"BBA\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bba.org.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">BBA<\/a>) and the Council of Mortgage Lenders (<a title=\"CML\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cml.org.uk\/cml\/home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CML<\/a>), to release lending data at a postcode level, marks a significant turning point in the quest for both greater transparency and greater fairness in financial lending.<\/p>\n<p>CDF is proud to be part of the\u00a0<a title=\"CIC\" href=\"http:\/\/www.communityinvestment.org.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Community Investment Coalition<\/a>\u00a0which has been campaigning for 18 months to bring this to fruition, building on the aspirations of many non-profit and business organisations over the past 10 years.<\/p>\n<h3>Swimming against the status quo<\/h3>\n<p>We have worked systematically alongside senior politicians, financial policy-thinkers, makers and doers, to arrive at this point and I applaud their shared commitment. It has required a sustained effort to swim against the status quo. As a result we will now be able to see the outstanding stock of lending committed to customers across 3 categories, broken down by 9,000 postcodes across:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Loans and overdrafts to small and medium enterprises (SMEs)<\/li>\n<li>Mortgages<\/li>\n<li>Unsecured personal loans<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Major step in transparency<\/h3>\n<p>Our CIC partners include the\u00a0<a title=\"CRC\" href=\"http:\/\/www.responsible-credit.org.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Centre for Responsible Credit<\/a>, the new economics foundation (<a title=\"nef\" href=\"http:\/\/www.neweconomics.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">nef<\/a>),\u00a0<a title=\"CCLA\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ccla.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CCLA<\/a>\u00a0investment management and the\u00a0<a title=\"CDFA\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cdfa.org.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Community Development Finance Association (CDFA)<\/a>. \u00a0I would like to thank them for providing the evidence required to support this campaign. Our shared aspiration is that this major step in transparency will help to tackle \u2018credit deserts\u2019 across Great Britain, where businesses and consumers struggle to access fair credit.<\/p>\n<p>This new data will allow businesses and the public to see clearly how the banking and building society sectors are serving the wider economy, and in which areas of Great Britain there is less lending. Publishing data in such a detailed way will assist competition, allowing new entrants to identify where there is unmet demand and to pursue new business in these areas.<\/p>\n<h3>Dispelling industry myths<\/h3>\n<p>Of course, there are those within the banking industry who will continue to flex their muscles by purporting that this opportunity for transparency is a problem rather than part of the solution to rebuild trust, support economic growth across the whole economy and extend their reach into potential new markets.<\/p>\n<p>One of the Chinese whispers doing the rounds is a comparison to the US\u2019 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and that the CRA was responsible for the sub-prime crisis. This is nonsense, of course, and is a myth contradicted by evidence. For the nerds among you, take a look at the US Congress\u2019\u00a0<a title=\"Final Report\" href=\"http:\/\/cybercemetery.unt.edu\/archive\/fcic\/20110310173545\/http:\/\/c0182732.cdn1.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com\/fcic_final_report_full.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Final Report of the National Commission on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crisis in the United States<\/a>\u00a0(page xxvii) which concludes that:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Commission concludes the CRA was not a significant factor in subprime lending or the crisis. Many subprime lenders were not subject to the CRA. Research indicates only 6% of high-cost loans\u2014a proxy for subprime loans\u2014had any connection to the law.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLoans made by CRA-regulated lenders in the neighborhoods in which they were required to lend were half as likely to default as similar loans made in the same neighborhoods by independent mortgage originators not subject to the law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We have helped lay the foundations for fair lending \u2013 please stay with us and tell your friends about the\u00a0<a title=\"Community Investment Coalition (CIC)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cdf.org.uk\/?news-item=big-local-%e2%80%93-big-opportunity-big-impact\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CIC campaign<\/a>\u00a0and help us to maintain this, so far, voluntary arrangement to disclose data.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; See more at: http:\/\/www.cdf.org.uk\/blog-17-december-2013-transparency-in-banking\/#sthash.swSuGOOl.dpuf<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In December 2013 the British Bankers\u2019 Association (BBA) and the Council of Mortgage lenders announced an increase in transparency in banking practice.<\/p>\n<p>In her latest blog, Alison discusses the announcement along with CDF\u2019s role in the Community Investment Coalition to campaign for fairer finance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18,32,56,60,93,123,124,151],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cdf","tag-banks","tag-campaign","tag-community-investment-coalition","tag-community-reinvestment-act","tag-fair-finance","tag-legislation","tag-lending-data-disclosure","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alisonseabrooke.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}