Abacus Federal Savings Bank
 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Finance and insurance |
| Founded | New York City (1984) |
| Founder | Thomas Sung  |
| Headquarters | New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania |
Key people | N/A |
| Products | Banking |
| Revenue | N/A (Assets = $ 232.847 million) Return on assets = 1.12 Return on equity = 7.5 |
| Website | www |
Abacus Federal Savings Bank (國寶銀行) is a bank in the United States founded in December 1984 by a group of business leaders from the Chinese American community in New York City. The founders' original purpose was to provide banking services to immigrants and local residents of lower Manhattan. As the Chinese immigrant population grew in the 1980s and 1990s, the bank retained its original mission, but expanded its size and scope. It now has six branches covering New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Besides the traditional banking services, it also offers insurance and securities through its subsidiaries. Abacus is federally chartered. Its mortgage and other services extend to all states in the United States.[1]
Abacus has a wholly owned insurance subsidiary, the Abacus Insurance Agency Corp. (AIAC), which provides life, health, accident, and annuity insurance.[1]
Prosecution and exoneration
In May 2012, New York prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney's office indicted the bank and 19 of its employees on charges of fraud in relation to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of mortgages that had been sold to Fannie Mae between 2005 and 2010. The bank was accused of falsifying loan applications so that borrowers would qualify for mortgages.[2] Abacus has said that it uncovered the improper behavior itself, reported it to the regulator, and fired the employee in question. It also said it was not involved with the fraudulent packaging of subprime mortgage securities and had a mortgage default rate of 0.5%, a tenth of the national average.[3]
The unreasonableness of the prosecution, in light of the treatment received by large banks, was questioned by various media outlets.[4] It was criticized by journalist Matt Taibbi in his 2014 book The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap.[5][6]
The bank, along with its former Chief Credit Officer and its former loan supervisor, were acquitted of all charges brought by the New York prosecutors in a jury trial in New York Supreme Court on June 3 and 4, 2015.[7][8][9]
On September 9, 2015, the Court dismissed all of the charges against the remaining defendants, due to lack of evidence.
The story is told in Steve James' feature-length documentary Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, which had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, September 11, 2016. It was broadcast nationally on PBS Frontline on September 12, 2017.[10] Abacus: Small Enough to Jail was nominated for the 2018 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.[11]
References
- ^ a b "About Us". Abacus Federal Savings Bank.
- ^ Karen Freifeld (2012-05-31). "Abacus Federal Savings Bank indicted for mortgage fraud". Reuters.
- ^ Dave Lindorff (2013-04-07). "Big trouble, little Chinatown bank". Crains New York.
- ^ Bennett, Drake. "Mortgage Fraud Prosecutors Pounce on a Small Bank". Bloomberg.
- ^ Welch, Matt. "Book Review The Divide". The Wall Street Journal.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Rao, Mythili. "'The Divide': A Startling Portrait of U.S. Inequality". The Take Away. Retrieved 7 April 2014.
- ^ https://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/04/abacus-federal-acquittal-idUSL1N0YQ1CE20150604
- ^ https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/nyregion/abacus-bank-found-not-guilty-of-mortgage-fraud-and-other-charges.html?_r=0
- ^ https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/19/business/a-tiny-banks-surreal-trip-through-a-fraud-prosecution.html?_r=0
- ^ "After the Crash, Big Banks Got Bailouts. Abacus Faced Charges.". 12 September 2016.
- ^ Johns, Katie, Documentary about Tom Sung gets Oscar nod, Sarasota Observer, Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Further reading
- Taibbi, Matt (2014). "Unintended Consequences" The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap. New York: Spiegel & Grau. ISBN 978-0-8129-9342-4. pp. 3–51.
- Asian-American culture in New Jersey
- Banks based in New York City
- Banks established in 1984
- Chinese American banks
- Chinese-American culture in New York City
- Chinese-American culture in Pennsylvania
- Privately held companies based in New Jersey
- Privately held companies based in New York (state)
- Privately held companies based in Pennsylvania
- 1984 establishments in New York (state)