'Banking terrorist' fights for poor - Bruce Marks's Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America fights banks for loans for low-income areas - Brief Article

Boston

Bruce Marks has a name for himself: "Banking Terrorist." It doesn't look good on a resume, but Marks's tactics have helped the Massachusetts-based activist win truckloads of money for impoverished neighborhoods.

Marks takes on the banks for refusing to lend money in low-income and minority neighborhoods. He says many of these same banks work in cahoots with shady loan brokers and "tin men," people who peddle bogus home repairs, or trap unsuspecting homeowners into mortgages laced with hidden fees and high interest rates.

Marks's first target was New England's largest bank, Fleet Financial Group. The bank owned a loan company accused of preying on 20,000 black homeowners in Georgia. Using sit-ins, door-to-door organizing, and publicity stunts, Marks and a coalition of consumer attorneys prompted a probe by the Georgia attorney general.

After state congressional hearings, Fleet promised to come up with millions in class-action settlements and special-loan programs. The deal included $140 million in low-cost loans for the poor funneled through the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America--the group Marks runs. In return, the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation agreed to leave Fleet alone.

Bankers around the country scurried to avoid becoming the group's next target. First Union Corp. promised $150 million to low-income neighborhoods. NationsBank pledged $500 million. In all, Marks has won $1.3 billion in loan pacts from banks.

Marks is now pursuing America's second-largest corporation, Ford Motor Co., which owns a high-rate finance subsidiary. The Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America has been sending letters to thousands of Ford mortgage customers in an effort to document a pattern of alleged mortgage fraud.

Bankers call Marks a shakedown artist. Fleet hired private detectives to prepare a dossier on him, and threatened to indict him for making statements aimed at manipulating the company's stock price. Other critics wonder whether he has the managerial skills to run a billion-dollar lending empire. Or whether the "no-protest" clauses in his deals allow banks to buy his silence. Some activists have continued blasting NationsBank, for example, even after Marks has settled his differences with the banking giant.

But Marks hasn't backed down. He says he will go after any bank that doesn't live up to its end of the deal. "If we don't get the criticism, we know we're not pushing hard or far enough," Marks says over a cell phone on Amtrak's Boston-to-D.C. run. "Criticism is a badge of honor."

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