New York Community Bank

New York Community Bank

Type	public (NYSE: NYB)
Industry	Banking
Founded	1859
Headquarters	Westbury, NY, USA
Products	Banking
Website	www.mynycb.com

New York Community footprint; includes its traditional Greater New York footprint (upper-left), and the southern Florida (upper-right), Ohio (lower-left), and Arizona (lower-right) acquired through the AmTrust Bank takeover.

New York Community Bank (NYCB) is the savings bank subsidiary of the publicly traded company New York Community Bancorp. New York Community Bancorp is the fourth largest thrift in the United States and the largest in New York State.^[1] It is also the leading producer of multi-family loans for portfolio in New York City.^[1]

NYCB was founded in 1859 in Flushing, Queens as Queens County Savings Bank, and changed their name on December 15, 2000 to New York Community Bank to better reflect their market area beyond Queens.

NYCB serves New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County through its Queens County Savings Bank, Richmond County Savings Bank, Roosevelt Savings Bank, Roslyn Savings Bank, and New York Community branded branches. It serves northern New Jersey through its newly formed Garden State Community Bank division, which consolidated four divisions: First Savings Bank of New Jersey, Ironbound Bank, Penn Federal Savings Bank, and Synergy Bank. Customers of NYCB can make transactions at any branch regardless of division.

Additionally, New York Community Bancorp has a second, commercial banking subsidiary, New York Commercial Bank (formerly Long Island Commercial Bank), which operates two divisions, New York Commercial Bank and Atlantic Bank of New York.

Multi Family Lending

In New York City--where the majority of the housing stock consists of rental units in multi-family buildings--New York Community Bank has been producing multi-family loans for more than 40 years. As the only lender to consistently provide funds to finance the City’s multi-family buildings--even in times of economic crisis--New York Community Bank has established itself as a leader in this lending niche.

Most of the loans produced by the Bank are secured by low- to moderate-income buildings that are subject to rent control and rent stabilization laws. In fact, of the $32 billion of multi-family loans produced by the Bank from January 1, 1993 through March 31, 2011, approximately $24 billion--or 75%--were secured by such properties.

Although New York Community Bank claims that it has distinguished itself as a "multi-family lender with a record of asset quality", this is far from true. Over New York Community Bank's entire portfolio, there are 328 buildings with more than three B and C violations per unit serving a total of 6469 families. Additionally, 118 multifamily buildings in their portfolio have five or more code violations per unit, which is New York City's Department of Housing Preservation and Development's (HPD) statutory definition of distressed housing. That represents housing for nearly 1700 families.

New York Community bank also claims that it has "a long-held practice of retaining the multi-family loans it originates", which is also untrue. NYCB just sold the mortgages on 8 severely distressed buildings in foreclosure in the Bronx to an unnamed buyer at an unnamed price. NYCB refused to say who the buyer is despite repeated requests from the New York City's Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the City Council. The 309 apartments have more than 1600 outstanding code violations.

NYCB currently has 34 additional buildings in foreclosure across NYC, with just over 800 apartments. Combined they have just under 5,000 code violations (more than 6 violations per unit). 16 of those buildings are located in the Bronx which accounts for 450 apartments. Combined they have a 2635 outstanding code violations.

In March of 2006, New York Community Bank entered into an agreement with Housing Here and Now to improve oversight and code violation compliance of loans in their portfolio. NYCB agreed to improve oversight of buildings in their portfolio and work more closely with tenants and community organizations to address repair concerns. As part of the agreement, NYCB also made a commitment to perform pre-loan inspections of buildings with three or more “B” and “C” violations per unit would receive special attention and require additional repair commitments from landlords. Since March 2006, NYCB has issued close to 1748 loans for multifamily buildings in New York City. Of those, 159 buildings, or 9.1% of the total, currently have more than three “B” and “C” violations per unit, for a total of 3354 units of housing.

Currently, community groups and tenants are trying to convince the bank to consider asset quality when buying and selling buildings and to encourage the bank to deleverage many of their multi-family assets. This is one significant way that the bank could improve building conditions and help maintain affordability in its regulated buildings. Tenants and advocates have protested the bank on numerous occasions in 2011, but at present, the bank has been unresponsive to their demands. ^{[2] [3] [4] [5] [6]}

AmTrust Failure

On December 4, 2009, the FDIC took control of AmTrust, a bank headquartered in Cleveland, OH with 66 branches in Ohio, Florida and Arizona. New York Community Bank acquired AmTrust, worth $12 billion, from the FDIC in a deal. As part of the deal, the FDIC is shielding New York Community Bank from the $9 billion debt. The branches in Florida and Arizona retained the AmTrust name, but branches in Ohio were reverted back to Ohio Savings in spring 2010. This also expanded NYCB's branch footprint outside of Greater New York for the first time.

On March 26, 2010, Desert Hills Bank in Phoenix, Arizona was also seized by the FDIC. Due to the smaller size of Desert Hills, and the recent acquisition of AmTrust, Desert Hills was absorbed into the AmTrust division.

Divisions

New York Community Bank operates branches under the following divisional brands. Not included here are the former AmTrust operations.

	Queens County Savings Bank, founded April 14, 1859, is the oldest and original part of NYCB. It was also the first bank in Queens. QSCB has 34 branches throughout Queens.
	Roosevelt Savings Bank, established in 1895 as "Eastern District Savings Bank", changed its name in 1920 in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt. It eight branches serve Brooklyn.
	Roslyn Savings Bank, established in 1875, was the first bank in Nassau County. It currently serves Nassau and Suffolk Counties through its 57 branches.
	CFS Bank, founded on August 14, 1889, as "Columbia Savings and Loan Association, later changed its name to "Columbia Federal Savings Bank". In 1997 it shortened its name to the current "CFS Bank", which could be an acronym for its former name, or also "Convenient Financial Services", and currently "Complete Financial Services". Of its 6 branches, 4 are in Westchester County, one is in the Bronx and one is in Manhattan. These branches are now branded as New York Community Bank as the CFS Bank moniker was retired. The Manhattan branch, was located in a Pathmark store in Lower Manhattan, and was NYCB's only Manhattan branch until it was closed. New York Commercial Bank's acquisition of Atlantic Bank of New York added 5 branches, which despite operating under the Commercial Bank's charter, are accessible to the Community Bank's customers.
	Richmond County Savings Bank was founded on October 20, 1886 in the Odd Fellows Building on the corner of Richmond Terrace and Broadway, and joined NYCB in July 2001. They serve Staten Island with 23 branches throughout Staten Island.
	In December 2007, NYCB created its Garden State Community Bank division to consolidate its four New Jersey divisions - First Savings Bank of New Jersey, Ironbound Bank, Penn Federal Savings Bank, and Synergy Bank - into one division. First Savings Bank of NJ had four branches exclusively in the City of Bayonne, NJ. It was founded in 1889 and joined NYCB in July 2001. Ironbound Bank served Essex and Union Counties in New Jersey through four branches. It was named for the section of Newark, NJ in which it was founded, in 1988. It joined NYCB in 2001. On April 2, 2007, NYCB acquired Penn Federal Savings Bank, adding branches in East Central and North East New Jersey. In 1941, 11 building and loan associations in the Ironbound section of Newark consolidated under the name of Penn Federal Savings and Loan Association. The S&L later changed its name to Penn Federal Savings Bank, to associate the bank with the community's centerpiece, Penn Station. On October 1, 2007, NYCB acquired Synergy Bank of Cranford, New Jersey, which had branches throughout northern and central New Jersey. Synergy Bank began in the early 1950s, when employees of one of New Jersey’s major pharmaceutical firms formed a federal credit union. In 1998, the credit union’s members voted to convert to a savings institution. In September 2009, NYCB will rebrand the Synergy branches to Garden State Community Bank. All Synergy customers' accounts will then be transferred to the NYCB system and will be accessible at any Garden State Community bank branch.

Citations

1. ^ ^{a b} SNL DataSource, http://www.snl.com/bank/
2. ^ http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/bronx-tenants-fault-banks-for-shoddy-housing-conditions/
3. ^ http://www.unhp.org/bip&hood.html
4. ^ http://thesurrealestate.org/
5. ^ http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110310/REAL_ESTATE/110319991
6. ^ http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-04-12/local/29434376_1_bronx-tenants-bronx-apartment-buildings-dina-levy

External links

• NYCB Home

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