As Subprime Lending Crisis Unfolded, Watchdog Fed Didn't Bother Barking

By Binyamin Appelbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 27, 2009

The visits had a ritual quality. Three times a year, a coalition of Chicago community groups met with the Federal Reserve and other banking regulators to warn about the growing prevalence of abusive mortgage lending.

They began to present research in 1999 showing that large banking companies including Wells Fargo and Citigroup had created subprime businesses wholly focused on making loans at high interest rates, largely in the black and Hispanic neighborhoods to the south and west of downtown Chicago.

The groups pleaded for regulators to act.