The National Association of Realtors last month said it would actively oppose the application for federal deposit insurance by Wal-Mart Bank, a proposed Industrial Loan Company headquartered in Salt Lake City, and requested the opportunity to testify at upcoming hearings. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has scheduled public hearings in April in the Washington, D.C., area, and the Kansas City, Mo., metro area on Wal-Mart Bank’s application.
NAR said it was opposing Wal-Mart’s application for the same reason that it has opposed permitting national banks to broker real estate-that banking and commerce should not be mixed.
“We believe that approval of this application would set a serious precedent and lead to the erosion of the national policy against mixing banking and commerce,” said NAR President Thomas M. Stevens.
NAR opposes the recent approvals by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granting three banks approval to build hotels, mixed use projects and windmill energy farms.
“We view the actions by the OCC as crossing the line in the separation of banking and commerce. Look back on the savings and loan scandal of the 1980’s and you’ll see similar mixing of banking and commerce. We are very concerned,” said Stevens, of Vienna, Va., and senior vice president of NRT Inc.