How To Sign New York Banking Form

How to industry sign banking new york form safe

I am Nick Powell the opinion editor at city and state magazine joining me on today's edition of city and state TV is Keith mess Strich the CEO of Amalgamated Bank thank you for joining us today Keith good to see you Nick um so I wanted to start off our conversation you recently released five five principles of reasonable reasonable banking and and I guess you drafted this in a letter to the CEOs of other financial institutions and I've got some coverage in the Washington Post among other outlets why did you feel like the timing was good to put this forward and what what kind of mission were you hoping to accomplish with sending these to other financial institutions sure so let's face it the banking industry doesn't exactly have a lot of trust it's not particularly popular amongst a lot of the American populace in 2008 the economy almost cratered a lot of people blamed the banks for that there was good reason to blame the banks for a lot of that and the industry has really done very little since that time to to regain that a trusted place in the economy that community banks really occupied for a very very long time last week I wrote to the hundred largest banks in the country their CEOs and I said that our bank had adopted five principles of responsible banking and said I hope you can look at these and adopt either these principles or similar principles for you for your bank as well so I think it's timely we can't continue to be an industry that is maligned as it is and I think it's time to reset our not just our bank but our industry and the minds of the American populace and what are those five principles if you could just run run through them for sure so so first is really that we need to embrace economic opportunity that banks historically had been somebody who could really provide economic opportunity for families across the country it's how people bought their houses is how they started small business it's how they send their kids to school we need to actually really reimburse at and see banky bankers as a force for good as somebody who can actually change people's lives or help create economic opportunity to it's trust that the real currency of banking is trust not the bank accounts that with that we operate and that we needed to do things that regain people's trust good products fair products not ripping people off and really that trust third regulations not the enemy that a lot of bankers want to malign the regulator's say that they're about to destroy the industry that's that's not true the banking regulators in this country need to have real tools to make sure that they can maintain a safe and sound regulatory safe and sound economic environment for us so that the economy once again doesn't get to the brink of disaster and regular should be our allies not our not our enemies fourth we should embrace economic opportunity our bank was the first bank to raise its way it's minimum wage of $15 an hour we need to be respectful to people that work for us and we need to support the causes so that other people have an ability to really participate in the economy and bankers should be leaders on that and then fifth it's really transparency we should tell people how we make money we should be clear in our corporate governance standards that we have a set of principles that we adhere to and we should be much more open about what has really involved become quite an opaque industry we think if people embrace that that's a way that bankers can really regain their prominence in the in the community now he talks about economic opportunity and then raising the minimum wage specifically I'm sure you're aware that the governor announced a unilateral statewide $15 minimum wage for first 10,000 state workers I believe how what was your reaction to hearing this news and and why did you why I guess what made you kind of what motivated Amalgamated to get out in front on the fit on the raise the wage issue and and raising your own minimum so two different questions that really so when I heard the governor's announcement yesterday I cheered I mean it was it was a terrific announcement that said here in a pretty expensive state to live in that by 2018 city employees are or state employees in the city in New York City would be paid at least $15 an hour getting closer to a wage that you can live on in the city not quite there but get it but getting closer and by 2021 I think other workers in the state would share the same that's great and it comes on the heels of the governor wanting to go for a statewide minimum wage in private industry as as well and and in the wake of the board really passing that for fast-food workers in the state it's real progress it's it's getting wages in this country much closer to where they need to be in terms of our wage nobody should be in front of this more than the banking industry it's the richest wealthiest one of the most profitable industries in the entire country everybody thinks about Jamie Dimon and the big Titans of business and how much they make the reality is the average wage for a bank teller in this country is a little over $12 an hour 70% of bank workers make less than that 40% of bank workers in the state of New York aren't some form of public assistance in the banking industry that that's crazy and so we said time for that to end we jumped on the bandwagon for $15 we should raised it right away and then indexed it so that it goes up year after after a year and really I think the rest of the industry should follow suit if you can't have workers in the banking industry making that kind of wage how do we expect retail workers and fast-food workers and others to ever be able to attain those kind of wages sure another campaign that that amalgamated got involved with is the ID NYC program which was is partly the brainchild of Melissa mark-viverito and the de Blasio administration but you guys played an important role and and and getting involved in you know not just pushing the ID program but allowing those that had the IDS whether they be an undocumented immigrants or normal working people can open a checking account for amalgamated so what was there you know a kind of an equal social justice and good business practices motivation behind getting involved in ID my c.push not having a bank account in the 21st century means you leave lead a pretty miserable existence you can't pay your bills online you can't take advantage of the kinds of discounts that are available for shopping online you have to go in person to be able to pay your bills you don't have the dignity of being able to have what you and I and many other people have you have to go to a check cashing place and carry your paycheck in your in your pocket and pay a big fee and be kind of a target for robbers right when you when you do all that it's really a means expect to be able to get a bank account and it will well banks have an obligation to know their customer so they're not providing a fraudulent means of conveyance if you will we really work with the with the administration here in the city to find a way that we could accept that idea as a form of ID for opening a bank account and we're proud that more people have used that ID to open accounts that are our bank than any other banking institution in the city so what are you doing differently an amalgamated that's allowing you know potentially undocumented immigrants to open a checking account as opposed to opening account say at JPMorgan Chase or Bank of America or something like that so one of the important important things is you still need a tax identification number to be able to open an account whether it's a social security number or for folks who are in some form of immigration status an ITIN number which allows that as long as you have those two documents will take the picture ideas a secondary form of identification to be able to do that quite frankly other banks just haven't been willing to do that there even though the protections in place are just as much as a driver's license from another state without really super clear guidance from the banking regulators other banks have been on a link to do that us and six other banks in the city said no we think that this is adequate and we can open that bank account interesting so another going back very quickly to the to the raise the wage campaign you guys were involved in a little bit of a skirmish with the NCAA who seem to be in the news for a lot of different skirmishes these days but you know you I guess you ran some ads advocating for the raise the wage campaign after several several weeks on subways and platforms and the like the MTA pulled the ads saying there were two political I suppose right um what kind of can you get into the nature that that disagreement and and why I mean in your opinion what were the motives behind the MTA pulling the ads because clearly I mean anybody who's ridden the subway or mass transit New York City has seen plenty of ads that can be construed as political or not and they run for weeks on end or months on end so what what happened to you why the disconnect let's start with the motivation of the Amalgamated Bank for running ads in the first place for 92 years we've been a bank that's been owned by the by a Union by the what used to be the amalgamated Clothing Workers now as workers United that sense of economic justice and standing up for for a fair minimum wage and other things it's just part of our psyche and who we are we thought it was important to be participants in the debate around this and wanted to use some of our advertising dollars in 2015 to get people to join the raise the wage campaign goes with the petition campaign we've been running on our website and a number and a number of other things so we bought a we took out an ad buy in the subway system I think 1,400 subway cards that ran for a four week period three and a half weeks into that ad buy all of a sudden we got a call from the MTA saying that they violated their ban on political speech and that they were that they were taking them down I can't speak to their motivation I can't speak to the motivation on why for three and a half weeks it wasn't considered political speech and for remaining half week it was but they but they took them down kind of a mistake on the part of the MTA because all I did was draw more attention on to the to the ads themselves every every outlet including yours I think ran a story about about the about the thing oftentimes reprinting the the ad I don't know why they did it it's it's it's kind of an affront to the free speech rights not only of our bank but if anybody else was making the same statement I presume they would declare that a violation on free speech as well it's certain or a political speech it certainly doesn't seem to be the kind of thing that a quasi government agency should be in the position of banning sure do you anticipate doing any business with the MTA in the future or does maybe sour kind of relations Ohio will do business and I think we'll try and be as increasingly provocative as we and we're on that campaign and and see and see what the answer is that time so I wanted to wrap up by asking a little bit about you know yeah I know you guys do a little bit of political banking as well for the Democratic Party Hillary for America the DNC the D s CC among others so I'm curious in this political climate where we're you know we have an influx of big money in our in our political system you know where does how do Amalgamated fit in in this kind of post citizens united world where you're obviously involved very much in campaigns and things that alike you know but what how do you feel about kind of where or where we're heading as a as a country in terms of just you know the the influx of huge money so we do make a business of banking the political establishment you named a number of our clients we have many many campaign clients it's because we do it better than anybody else there are some nuances in that in that world of banking that if you understand how it works it gives you a competitive advantage we believe we have that we also have political alignment with that side is a political ledger if you will so people like to bank with a values aligned bank if you will and do that and while certainly the advent of a lot of additional money in the system has been good business for the bank it's a sad commentary on where we are our elections really do last too long the amount of money that's flowing into politics means that a smaller proportion of people have an undue amount of influence in the in the process it's not fair and I think we do need reform of the electoral laws so that we had said that we bring some balance back on to the process so that that a very small number of rich families new york times around this this this piece that 154 families disproportionately had already contributed to the presidential election that that's some wrong about that in america and i think we need to find a way that to get that balance back sure keith mess rich the CEO Amalgamated Bank thank you so much for joining us on city and state TV thanks