Ethical Finance

Just one proposal on ethical finance is pending for 2021. Trillium Asset Management wants KeyCorp to “complete a report... evaluating the racial impacts that its overdraft policies and practices have on Black and other racial minority customers.” The proposal notes the bank charges a flat $33 fee when it pays each overdraft or non-sufficient funds instance, collecting in 2019 more than $148 million, “7% of its non-interest income and 44% of its service charge income.” It outlines the disproportionate impact of these fees on single, non-white renters with low incomes, that “customers often pay more in overdraft fees than the overage amount.” Further, “many consumers who opted into fee-based overdraft coverage for debit card transactions” after 2010 regulatory changes “did so as a result of aggressive or deceptive marketing.” Trillium asserts the bank’s fee “does not appear to bear any relationship to the cost or risk of covering an overdraft, which casts doubt on its reasons for imposing the fee and raises reputational risks.” Others such as Citibank do not charge for point of sale or ATM withdrawals, it notes. Finally, the proposal notes a proposed federal law, the Stop Overdraft Profiteering Act, that would address the problem. Combined with “increasing attention paid to the ways in which systemic racism exists in many institutions, including banks, and their impacts on society” justifies the requested report, Trillium concludes.