Rep. Maxine Waters (CA-43), chairperson of the House Committee on Financial Services, convened a full committee hearing entitled, “Holding Megabanks Accountable: Oversight of America’s Largest Consumer Facing Banks.” With an ongoing pandemic, rising interest rates and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, economic conditions for families are worsening. During the hearing, Committee Democrats, under the leadership of Chairwoman Waters explored a number of issues impacting consumers, including:
• Rise of bank mergers, which has closed branches across the country and expanded “banking deserts” for communities that rely on banking services.
• Efforts to close the nation’s widening racial-wealth gap and build on the commitments they made following the murder of George Floyd.
• Efforts to make consumers harmed by Equifax whole again.
• These institutions repeated violations of the law, earning them the title “repeat offenders.”
• Rise of emerging technologies, and how these banks are making whole consumers scammed through payments apps like Zelle.
• Efforts to protect employees following the Supreme Court’s shameful decision to abolish Roe v. Wade and their efforts to combat gun violence.
During her line of questioning, Chairwoman Waters grilled Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf about reports that the bank conducted fake job interviews with Black, female and other minority candidates even though a White man had already been hired to fill the open position, in an effort to improve its record on diversity efforts.
Our Weekly reported on this issue in its Aug. 25 edition https://tinyurl.com/ysmf8mnc.
Our Weekly coverage of local news in Los Angeles County is supported by the Ethnic Media Sustainability Initiative, a program created by California Black Media and Ethnic Media Services to support minority-owned-and-operated community newspapers across California.
