Fair-lending advocates are turning up the heat on Columbia Financial’s plan to acquire Northfield Bancorp, warning the deal could hit a serious regulatory wall after watchdogs flagged stark racial gaps in 2024 mortgage data. Fair Finance Watch has asked the Federal Reserve for an evidentiary hearing, arguing that Home Mortgage Disclosure Act numbers show unusually high denial rates for Black applicants at both banks.
Columbia and Northfield first unveiled the merger in February, describing a straightforward growth play. The twist: the whole transaction depends on Columbia’s planned mutual-to-stock conversion and a series of federal regulatory approvals that suddenly look a lot less routine.
Watchdog Lays Out HMDA Findings
In a comment filed with the Fed and reproduced by Inner City Press, Fair Finance Watch said Columbia’s 2024 HMDA records showed four mortgage originations to white borrowers in New York with one denial and effectively no originations to African American applicants.
The group also pointed to Columbia’s New Jersey book of business: 612 loans to white borrowers with 164 denials, versus just 82 loans to African American borrowers and 18 denials. On paper, that is exactly the sort of gap fair-lending advocates want examiners to dig into…