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Article: L.A. banks offer services to inner-city customers: critics question commitment to communities. (Special Report: Finance).
- Article from:
- San Diego Business Journal
- Article date:
- May 12, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 CBJ, L.P. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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LOS ANGELES -- When Operation Hope convinced three financial institutions to acquire the banking functions of its three Hope Centers last year in Maywood, Watts and Baldwin Hills, the move seemed to validate its mission of luring financial institutions to serve inner-city customers.
A number of banks have opened branches in poorer areas of Los Angeles over the last decade or so. Some came in reluctantly after the 1989 strengthening of the Community Reinvestment Act, which placed lending, service and investment requirements on banking institutions. Others have seen new opportunities.
"You see banks opening branches in areas where they wouldn't have even ...