Abacus Federal Savings Bank () is an American bank founded in December 1984 by a group of business leaders from the

Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong ...

community in New York City. Abacus was the only U.S. bank prosecuted in relation to the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

; it was exonerated of all charges following a jury trial in 2015. The aggressive prosecution of Abacus, in contrast to the relatively lenient treatment received by the large banks, was questioned and criticized by various media outlets. A documentary about the prosecution and exoneration of Abacus, '' Abacus: Small Enough to Jail'', was nominated for the 2018

Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature The Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film is an award for documentary films. In 1941, the first awards for feature-length documentaries were bestowed as Academy Honorary Award, Special Awards to ''Kukan'' and ''Target for Tonight''. The ...

Locations

The bank has locations in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Other services

Abacus has a wholly owned insurance subsidiary, the Abacus Insurance Agency Corp. (AIAC), which provides life, health, accident, and annuity insurance. Abacus is federally chartered. Its mortgage and other services extend to all states in the United States.

Prosecution and acquittal

Indictment

In May 2012, New York prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney's office indicted the bank and 19 of its employees on charges of fraud in relation to hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of mortgages that had been sold to

Fannie Mae The Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), commonly known as Fannie Mae, is a United States government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) and, since 1968, a publicly traded company. Founded in 1938 during the Great Depression as part of the New ...

between 2005 and 2010. The bank was accused of falsifying loan applications so that borrowers would qualify for mortgages. Abacus argued that it uncovered the improper behavior itself, reported it to the regulator, and fired the employee in question. It also said it was not involved with the fraudulent packaging of subprime mortgage securities and had a mortgage default rate of 0.5%, a tenth of the national average.

Verdict

The bank, along with its former Chief Credit Officer and its former loan supervisor, were acquitted of all charges brought by the New York prosecutors in a jury trial in New York Supreme Court on June 3 and 4, 2015.

In media

The aggressive prosecution of Abacus, in contrast to the relatively lenient treatment received by large banks, was questioned and criticized by various media outlets. It was criticized by journalist

Matt Taibbi Matthew Colin Taibbi (; born March 2, 1970) is an American author, journalist and podcaster. A former contributing editor for ''Rolling Stone'', he is the author of several books and publisher of ''Racket News'' (formerly ''TK News''). He has re ...

in his 2014 book '' The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap''. Jill Sung criticized the disparate treatment, including a

perp walk A perp walk, walking the perp,The term "perp" is short for "perpetrator", and is commonly used by Police#United States, police departments for those they arrest. It is legally inaccurate since the arrested individual's guilt (law), guilt has not ...

, as blatant racism against Asian Americans. The story is told in Steve James's feature-length documentary '' Abacus: Small Enough to Jail'', which had its premiere at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world. Founded in 1976, the festival takes place every year in early September. The organi ...

, September 11, 2016. It was broadcast nationally on PBS Frontline on September 12, 2017. ''Abacus: Small Enough to Jail'' was nominated for the 2018

.Johns, Katie,
Documentary about Tom Sung gets Oscar nod
', Sarasota Observer, Tuesday, January 23, 2018

References

External links

Official Website
{{Authority control Chinese-American culture in New Jersey Banks based in New York City Banks established in 1984 Chinese American banks Chinese-American culture in New York City Chinese-American culture in Pennsylvania Privately held companies based in New Jersey Privately held companies based in New York City Privately held companies based in Pennsylvania 1984 establishments in New York City