Woodstock Institute influences policy at the local, regional, and national level by closely analyzing the impact of pending proposals on lower-income and minority communities. Many of these letters are available for download.
Comment letter on Bank of America’s proposed 2003 acquisition of
Fleet. Woodstock Institute requests that the Federal Reserve Bank
of Richmond and the Federal Reserve Board hold multiple public hearings
on Bank of America’s acquisition of Fleet.
Woodstock Institute's comment letter opposing the OCC preemption of state consumer protection statutes for
national banks. This preemption removed much of the consumer and fair
lending authority previously granted to states by Congress and failed to provide a national policy to protect borrowers from
abusive lending practices.
Comment letter opposing any changes to the Section
326 customer identification rules that would not allow financial
institutions to accept certain types of foreign government-issued
identification, such as the Matricula Consular card, to open bank
accounts for immigrants. The letter states that the use of the
Matricula Consular card has allowed thousands of families of Mexican
origin to access financial services in the traditional banking sector
rather than pay exorbitant rates at check cashers and payday loan
stores.
Woodstock Institute strongly urges the IRS
to not expand pre-certification beyond the initial group of 45,000
filers before a comprehensive evaluation demonstrating that
pre-certification is effective in reducing overpayments and can be
conducted without significant harm to eligible filers.
Woodstock Institute comments to the Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency on National City’s request to the OCC to
pre-empt the Georgia Fair Lending Act. National City claims that
the National Bank Act authorizes the OCC to occupy the field of real
estate lending regulation thus suggesting that all the provisions of
GFLA are preempted.
