It's the Brian Laird Show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone. Did you hear the news this week that Bank of America got into hot water over shady practices, according to an article as the New York Times reported it.

The bank was fined $150 million by federal regulators for what they described as junk fees as well as mishandling customer accounts.

They did all kinds of things the government found they had been opening credit card accounts without the knowledge of customers what, double charging for some overdraft fees and not following through on perks like rewards points promise to credit card holders.

All this to say privately owned banks, including the biggest most trusted ones, are more concerned about profits than the well-being of their customers. Surprise, surprise, who's surprised? Raise your hands, I don't see any hands.

So what's an alternative? Well, the New School Center for New York City Affairs released a report this week arguing for the economic and social benefits of creating a public bank.

What is that a government bank? So joining us now to give us a closer look at the possibilities of public banking is one of the authors of the report.

James Parrott, Director of Economic and Physical Policies at the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School.

And we also have Towsif Hassan public banking campaign organizer at the new economy project and advocacy group. So Towsif and James, welcome James, welcome back Towsif, welcome to WNYC.

It's good to be here. Thank you. Thanks for having us Brian.

James Parrott, could you start and just do sort of public banking 101 to our listeners who've never heard of the concept?

Sure, public banking, if the state legislation authorized this in New York, it would allow New York City, which has pretty sizable cash balances.

You know, the city has an annual budget of 110 billion dollars. So it has, at any one point in time, it might have 8 to 10 billion dollars in cash reserves that are held in banks.

And currently they're held in banks like Bank of America. That's one of the three largest holders of city deposits. So the public banking legislation would allow New York City to place those deposits in a public bank that would be chartered for the purpose of growing local communities in New York City.

So it's a, it's a matter of taking public resources from the city budget, using those on a temporary basis, lending those. So the public bank would be effectively a wholesale bank lending to retail, financial institutions like community, development, finance institutions, local credit unions that would then use those resources to land for affordable housing,

for small business development, for environmental remediation and climate change projects. Those are the, those are the public policy objectives that are articulated in the public banking act.

So it's not a proposal for a public bank that individual depositors would use for their savings or checking accounts or credit cards and things like that. This is for city funds and other large institutional public sector investors.

So we're actually imagining that a public bank would really allow the city to divest from the current big banks, the Wall Street banks that are running counter to the city's policy objectives.

They're driving the climate crisis by investing massive sums and fossil fuels. They're financing predatory landlord and luxury developers at gentrifying neighborhoods and displaced tenants. They're redlining poor New Yorkers and black and brown communities.

And that's why new economy project along with our partners in the public bank and YC coalition are working to create a public bank that would enable us to take our public money out of these banks that harm communities and instead put our public money to work for the public good.

New Yorkers wouldn't necessarily be able to go up to a public bank, open an account and engage in financial services. We're actually imagining public bank would partner with community development financial institutions and credit unions that are already doing a great job of providing those services in communities.

They have relationships in neighborhood and a public bank would partner with those institutions so they could serve more New Yorkers equitably and fairly.

So James looking at your report. It says in part that public banking in New York City would provide $5.8 billion in new lending by local community development credit unions and other responsible lenders.

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