Bill faces major challenges - banking lobby opposes Rep Albert Wynn's lending discrimination legislation - Newspoints

Black Enterprise, Oct, 1994 by Frank McCoy

Rep. Albert R. Wynn has a mission. This fall, the freshman legislator who represents Maryland's 4th District, encompassing parts of Prince Georges County (the wealthiest black suburb in the nation), intends to create a law, protecting minority businesses from lending discrimination. These businesses would be protected in the same way minority would-be homeowners are legally safeguarded against bank mortgage lending bias.

But don't expect the banking lobbyists--such as the American Bankers Association and the Independent Bankers Association--and their friends in Congress to sit by idly while new legislation that could penalize many banks for discriminatory practices becomes law.

Ultimately, Wynn may learn a lesson about lobbying interests and the influence they have in Washington.

Bankers are apoplectic about the bill, claiming that it will increase paperwork and personnel and be too expensive.

"To do this in every bank would amount to a huge cost, which we would end up paying," Edward Yingling, head of governmental relations for the ABA, said recently.

At BE press time, the bill was expected to be considered during hearings this fall.

Under Wynn's bill, called the Small Business Lending Disclosure Act or H.R. 918, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Improvement Act of 1991 would be amended to ensure the reliable collection of data on lending to minority-owned and start-up businesses. Minority business groups will use the data to try to show that, all other things being equal, minority applications are more likely to be rejected than those of white males.

The bill's teeth are simple but sharp. If it becomes law, regulatory institutions, such as the Comptroller of the Currency, will be mandated to provide the total number and aggregate dollar amounts of applications received for loans to minority-owned businesses and start-up businesses with annual revenues between $100,000 and $10 million. Second, select federal agencies will also provide total number and aggregate dollar amounts of commercial loans and real estate loans for companies with the above revenues.

Wynn, a member of the House Banking and Urban Affairs committee, defended his initiative earlier this year saying, "I think you go from dialogue to sanctions. If greater disclosure creates more pressure [on financial institutions] or highlights the [rejected loan] problem, that may work."

Wynn's initiative has models. There is the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, which proves discrimination by capturing similar race, gender and ethnicity data on home mortgage lending. This information is being used nationally by individuals and community groups to enforce the Community Reinvestment Act, forcing banks to make loans to low-and moderateincome residents in the bank's area of operation.

Wynn says it's unfair and illogical that "a lending institution may opt out of providing data on the number and amount of commercial loans it makes to small businesses, small agricultural farms and minority-owned small businesses."

At a time when growing numbers of blacks want to start businesses, particularly in areas of high black unemployment, Wynn's bill has tremendous potential.