Josh Silver

35 Posts

Josh B. Silver is a senior adviser with the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, where he produces white papers on the Community Reinvestment Act and fair lending policy and issues.
red herring
Homeownership

The Big Red Herring: The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) Will Help Predators Identify You!

HMDA is the key to preventing predatory behavior, not the cause of it, so how can an economics professor from George Washington University claim that HMDA can facilitate large-scale identity theft?

Display of Jim Crow-era signs
Communities

Integration as a Means of Combating Inequality

A review of books that delve into the harmful and far-reaching effects of racial segregation and solutions that integration measures can provide.

The spires and statue atop an old bank building.
Communities

Would Trump’s CRA Reform Really “Do No Harm?”

NCRC examined every single Community Reinvestment Act evaluation for mid-size banks conducted during 2016.

senator elizabeth warren
Policy

Meltdown: The Financial Crisis, Consumer Protection, and the Road Forward

In 2010, the scattered enforcement of consumer protection and fair lending laws across several agencies would end. The CFPB would have broad oversight over banks and non-banks, and though not perfect, this model has produced some impressive results.

The spires and statue atop an old bank building.
Policy

The Community Reinvestment Act at 40: A Careful Review of the Reviews

A review of HUD’s Cityscape issue, which is devoted to reviews and studies of the Community Reinvestment Act at its 40th anniversary.

Black computer enter key
Communities

SoFi, Not So Good: Is This Virtual Redlining?

SoFi is practicing product segregation. It wants to serve affluent people with its best products and shunt low- and moderate-income borrowers into inferior products that do not meaningfully serve credit needs.

Red road sign that says "Wrong Way"
Financial System

Under Trump, Treasury Goes Backward on Community Protections

A recent Treasury Department report on bank regulation and policy promotes changes that would move us backward when it comes to building a financial system that is equitable, efficient, and protects consumers and communities from abusive practices.

Neon sign in window reads "Real Estate Home Loans."
Housing Advocacy

Despite What Bankers Say, Data Is Indispensable

The American Bankers Association (ABA) issued a white paper maintaining that the CFPB exceeded its mandate under Dodd-Frank. Full of rhetoric, the white paper makes a number of unfounded allegations about HMDA data and the CFPB final rule.

CRA
Housing Advocacy

CRA Should be Becoming Less Partisan. Instead, It’s More.

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is a law that requires banks to serve the credit needs, consistent with safety and soundness, of all communities, including low- and moderate-income communities. With […]

Housing Advocacy

How Data Disclosure Will Help Prevent the Next Financial Crisis

It seems like an overstatement, but data disclosure can help prevent the next financial crisis.   In the run-up to the Great Recession, subprime and other abusive lenders made loans […]

Housing Advocacy

OCC Moving Steadily Forward on Fintechs–Is This a Good Thing?

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) appears to be plowing ahead with its proposal to allow non-bank financial technology companies, known as fintechs, to acquire national bank […]

Policy

How CRA Can Promote Integration in Gentrifying Neighborhoods

Gentrification—the process of neighborhood demographic and economic change in which middle- and upper-income people move into lower-income neighborhoods, increasing home values and rent prices—has intensified in large cities and metropolitan […]