Religious Institutions Protest Against Unjust Foreclosures by Withdrawing Money from Mega Banks

Slowly but surely an increasing number of religious institutions are pulling out their money from the mega banks protesting against what they think are unjust foreclosures and reluctance to lend money to small businesses. The campaign dubbed Move Our Money has crystallized into a coalition New Bottom Line (NBL) consisting of community groups, congregations, labour unions and also individuals. Their target is to remove $1 billion from the Wall Street banks to credit unions and community banks. Reverend Ryan Bell pastor of Los Angeles (Seventh-day Adventist) said, “In a way, the banks have divested from our communities, especially communities of colour. So we’re basically telling Bank of America that we want them to invest in our communities and until they do that we’re not going to give our money to them”. Six Christian congregations of Los Angles, including that of Bell, have announced they would withdraw collectively from Bank of America and Wells Fargo a total amount of $2 million – it being part of the campaign dubbed Move our Money. The campaign has taken time to kick off but things moved faster after a national convocation of the clergy that was recently held in New Orleans. Also joining in were many from other streams – Christian, Jews, Muslims. They promised to withdraw another $100 million. The event in New Orleans was sponsored by PICO National Network. The latter is a coalition of over 1,000 social justice organizations based on faith. The website of Move our Money reports that so far (21st November) $55 million has been transferred – it being a part of the campaign. However compared to the assets of the titans of Wall Street amounting to trillions of dollars, this amount is paltry. The campaign points accusing fingers at Wells Fargo, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase for not being proactive in modifying residential loans as a preliminary step in preventing foreclosure. Lending to small business units are at an all time low. These banks are also avoiding taxes and parking their gains overseas even after they pocketed billions of dollars as bailout from the taxpayer’s kitty. As per the findings of Move our Money by the close of 2009, Wells Fargo had modified only 22% of the loans of those borrowers who were eligible for it under a federal plan. The bank has not altered its foreclosing method “despite many confirmed reports of ‘robo-singing’ and other illegal practices”.