abacus bank chinatown

The bridge linking unbanked and underbanked marginalized groups, including racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, and persons of low socioeconomic status, with formal credit markets offering competitive and attractive terms begins with informality. Without these values, it becomes far too easy for a prosecutor to abuse his or her discretion and end up destroying innocent lives. Photo by Robert K. Chin. Business website. My knowledge of the community was embarrassingly shallow. It was a small, family-owned bank in New York’s Chinatown — and the story of how one small institution fought the government in court while the biggest culprits walked away with taxpayer money is the subject of Steve James‘ new documentary, “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail.” The bank, … It was founded by Thomas Sung, a … We are thrilled to share that Abacus: Small Enough to Jail has earned a nomination for Best Documentary Feature for the 90th Academy Awards®. “ Abacus: Small Enough to Jail ” is a new documentary from … The film offers three very important insights on economic equality and minority-group advancement. With Thomas Sung, Hwei Lin Sung, Cyrus Vance Jr., Matt Taibbi. Integrity and honesty have always been of utmost importance in our family. Quite the contrary! It was the Manhattan D.A.’s exaggerated response to Abacus the Chinatown bank that was unusual. The verdict was a complete exoneration, a term the losing assistant D.A. read more. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail is a 2016 American documentary film directed by Steve James. Kristof and WuDunn tell the story of America's crisis partly through the lives of friends Kristof grew up with in rural Yamhill, Oregon, a working-class area that was hit badly by the disappearance of blue - collar jobs. Second, Abacus exposes the incompetence of a prosecution that, in failing to understand the cultural context of an ethnic minority bank and its customers, winds up exploiting and reinforcing economic stereotypes and biases about them. Any additional thoughts you'd like to share? refuses to use, but victory came with a price tag of $10 million in defense costs. We have to guess about the nuts and bolts that are driving the central scandal.” Gleiberman asks, “Were the fraudulent documents a smoking gun, or were they a form of benign corner-cutting related to how business was routinely done in Chinatown? Accused of mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., Abacus becomes the only U.S. bank to face criminal charges in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The seminars focused on saving money, earning interest, and … ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL tells the incredible story of the Chinese immigrant Sung family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York. Oscar nominations - the Chinatown bank saga behind Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, up for best documentary Racism and political gain were the … Found inside – Page 190 > 10 Eššentials 5 7 2 3 1 $ Banks O Landmarks • African Burial Ground · Duane St & Broadway • Bridge Café • 279 Water St · Chinatown Ice Cream Factory ... Found inside – Page 112260 7284 1 Chinatown Federal Savings Bank , New York City , Manhattan , NY . 2260 7287 0 Abacus Federal Savings Bank , and Branch ... It tells the story of Thomas Sung, a Chinese immigrant and attorney who started a bank in Chinatown that became the only U.S. bank indicted for mortgage fraud related to the 2008 crisis. Get directions. Spanning five years and half a dozen countries, this is the unforgettable story of that extraordinary moment: the turn of the twentieth century, as seen by one of the greatest storytellers of our time. Ask the Community. Tap here to turn on desktop notifications to get the news sent straight to you. Part of HuffPost News. Easier said then done. Accused of mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., Abacus becomes the only U.S. bank to face criminal charges in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School 3501 Sansom Street The Sung family, the founders of Abacus Federal Savings Bank, continue crusading for their Chinatown Community- this time facing off against NYC Mayor DeBlasio and his plan to close Rikers Island Prison and replacing it with prisons in each of the boroughs (except Staten Island:). An unusual film about an unusual event is “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail,” the 2016 documentary about the only company criminally indicted following the 2008 mortgage crisis, a bank in Chinatown. Please try again later. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail tells the incredible saga of the Chinese immigrant Sung family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York. Details for: Abacus : Normal view MARC view ISBD view Abacus : small enough to jail [videorecording] / directed by Steve James ; produced by Mark Mitten, Julie Goldman ; a Mitten Media, Motto Pictures and Kartemquin Films production for WGBH/Frontline and Independent Television Service (ITVS) in association with Blue Ice Docs. “Arts Hop” with Think!Chinatown is produced in collaboration with Association for a Better New York (ABNY) and community partners Abacus Bank, Chinatown Core Block Association, and Welcome To Chinatown as part of “Meet Us In Chinatown.” 's office. There is much anger at the NY District Attorney's office, on behalf of the Sungs. Abacus tells the story of the Abacus Federal Savings Bank, a bank based in Chinatown, New York, founded in 1984 by Sino-American businessman Thomas Sung. Finally, Abacus illustrates the importance of informal and flexible lending practices to bringing the unbanked and underbanked members of racial and ethnic minorities into the formal market for financial services and credit, a notion known as “the democratization of credit.”. The film has restored our faith and hope that through this experience, we may be able to help society learn from mistakes, prevent similar situations from occurring, and seek positive change. She sees this is as a wake-up call to those who work for our criminal justice system. Abacus nominated for 90th Academy Awards®. Abacus Bank, 6 Bowery. Comparing Abacus Federal Savings to Bailey’s Building and Loan, Stephen Dalton in the Hollywood Reporter asserts that Abacus is “not quite that kind of folksy family business.”  He concludes, “Some accuse the DA’s office of racial bias, but the evidence does not really stand up. The documentary "Abacus: Small Enough to Jail" tells the story of Abacus Federal Savings Bank, a small family-run bank in New York City's Chinatown. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, directed by Steve James and produced by Mark Mitten and Julie Goldman, earned a nomination this Tuesday for a 2018 George Foster Peabody Award, one of the highest honors in broadcast and digital media. Mr. We believe that our community has achieved a lot of successes and we should be very proud of all our collective achievements. I have a long way to go, but the Sung family helped me gain an appreciation for how hard-working, close, and politically disenfranchised the community is. Abacus Federal Savings Bank, 6 Bowery. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail is an “official selection” at a number of film festivals around the world, including Toronto, Sydney, Hong Kong, Boston, and Los Angeles. And that's surprising too for mainstream audiences who have little experience with the lives of Chinese-American families. The headquarters and main branch of Abacus Federal Savings Bank sits prominently on a busy stretch of The Bowery, across from a 44-story low-income co-op apartment building in the heart of Chinatown. Ask the Community. One of his daughters (Jill) is its president and CEO and another (Vera) is a director and its closing attorney. Director Steve James (‘Hoop Dreams’) tells MarketWatch about “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail” and the trial of a family-run, Chinese community bank. Any undergraduate who has taken an introductory sociology or anthropology course should know that the distinction between “a gift” and “a loan” depends on norms of reciprocity and exchange that vary across cultures. Abacus utilized the social and cultural capital of its customers to enhance their opportunities to reap the benefits of participation in formal markets for credit by accurately predicting their creditworthiness and supplying paperwork that was truthful or acceptable according to standards prevailing among responsible borrowers in the community. It was founded by Thomas Sung, a Chinese American, in 1984. Penn Law is a Lifelong Partner Committed to Your Career Success. In 2015, Abacus Federal Savings Bank was the 2,651 st largest bank in the United States. That bank is called Abacus Federal Savings, it ranked 2531 in the US banks list by size and it is based in New York’s Chinatown. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail: Directed by Steve James. A new PBS "Frontline" documentary that aired Tuesday evening, “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail,” may reignite those questions. Abacus Federal Savings capitalized on the advantages generally enjoyed by ethnic and/or immigrant minority-owned banks that serve customers from the same group. After a court clerk read the 240 counts in the indictment and repeated the words “not guilty” after each one, members of the Sung family, which founded and owns the bank, wept and embraced one another in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. The charges included grand larceny, conspiracy, falsifying business records and residential mortgage fraud. Edit business info. A small financial institution called Abacus becomes the only company criminally indicted in the wake of the United States' 2008 mortgage crisis. The DA Office’s perception of the Chinese American community as passives underlined not only their decision to pursue our Bank, but also the means and methods in which they pursued the case. Is there anything you wish was shown differently? In figuring out whether to “style” the transaction a gift or a loan, the benefactors/lenders take into consideration the demands of the lender or mortgage guarantor or insurer, as well the implications of the tax laws. abacusbank.com. . Retrieved from NPR: - bank-that-paid-a-high-price Notes Ken Yu – First employee caught – 4 years – consistent and proven liar, forged documents, took “tips.” … Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Situation ... Chinatown Federal Savings Bank. We made it easy for you to exercise your right to vote. Found inside – Page 55605ME NH NH NH RI Rockland S & LA Bow Mills Bank and Trust . ... F.S.B. Goshen Savings Bank Cattaraugus County Bank Abacus Federal Savings Bank Chinatown ... Taking a stand against injustice is very difficult, but we have a responsibility as individuals and as a community to take that stand, no matter how small or large that stand may be. It’ll be screened Sunday at … Focuses on an ethnographic collection gathered from a complex of Chinese dwellings, the importance of which lies in its size, diversity, good condition, and observable continuity of materials known from earlier periods of Chinese occupation ... Abacus’s employees tended to be Chinatown residents who saw job listings in the Chinese-language papers, and who, like the customers they served, were often immigrants or the children of immigrants. News and Announcements. I'm just a filmmaker, and not equipped to answer this question. 6/29/2021 Abacus Bank has distributed $100,000 COVID-19 SBRG checks to 10 non-profit organizations in our community. Great. Business Week has filed a lengthy piece on Abacus Federal Savings Bank, the Chinatown-based institution that is the target of a very rare mortgage fraud … Get directions. By contrast, gargantuan institutions like Citicorp, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo received millions in bail out funds, but were never prosecuted because they were “too big to fail.”  Vance et al. The bank run began last Tuesday, April 22nd, when the bank in Chinatown placed an ad in a Chinese language newspaper saying that an Abacus employee had embezzled over $1 million. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, only one bank, Abacus … Sean Lyness, PBS Distribution. Thomas Sung in "Abacus: Small Enough to Jail." ; 6/2/2021 We have received another 5-Star rating from Bauerfinancial. The documentary was nominated for an Academy Award in 2018 and was produced … Director Steve James (‘Hoop Dreams’) tells MarketWatch about “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail” and the trial of a family-run, Chinese community bank. But by 2012, a family-run bank in New York City’s Chinatown, Abacus Federal Savings Bank (which ranked 2,651st in size among all U.S. banks), was deemed NOT too big to jail. Of course, for Manhattan D.A. I can feel their anxiety and empathy with the Sungs as they watch them navigate this difficult trial. There was nothing unusual about Abacus’s reliance on cultural expertise or informal mechanisms in underwriting and processing loans. For Mr. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail is a 2016 American documentary film directed by Steve James. Frontline – Abacus: Small Enough to Jail is available to stream.. Photo by Robert K. Chin. It tells the story of Thomas Sung, a Chinese immigrant and attorney who started a … Accused of mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., Abacus becomes the only U.S. bank to face criminal charges in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. One of our sage friends puts it more bluntly - the question for the DA’s Office is: did you treat us in the same way you treated non-minority banks, and what about those large banks who even admitted they committed crimes? Such banks rely on cultural solidarity and a professed ethic or mission of community service to attract deposits and customers. Business website. The crucial question is whether the documentary’s expanded cultural contextualization of Abacus’s mortgage lending operations is effective in countering or eroding anti-Asian American and anti-Asian immigrant preconceptions related to economics and financial transactions. It tells the story of Thomas Sung, a Chinese immigrant and attorney who started a bank in Chinatown that became the only U.S. bank indicted for … The acclaimed documentary, "Abacus: Small Enough To Jail," follows the story of the Sung family, an immigrant family from China that opened Abacus Federal Savings in Chinatown. Bank nearby CTBC Bank. With Thomas Sung, Hwei Lin Sung, Cyrus Vance Jr., Matt Taibbi. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail tells the incredible saga of the Chinese immigrant Sung family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York. Participant Abacus, Justin Lin-Directed Adaptation docu Sung Family Chinatown Bankers Only Bank To Face Criminal Charges 2008 Collapse An example of this was their extremely aggressive interrogation techniques on former employees and Bank customers. Unlike Fannie Mae, the Manhattan D.A. Found inside – Page 204CHIAO TUNG BANK - SILICON VALLEY CHINA TRUST BANK - NY CHINATOWN FEDERAL SAVINGS BANK CHINESE AMERICAN BANK - CHINATOWN CHINESE AMERICAN BANK - FLUSHING ... It has given us the ability to share this story with far more people than we had ever hoped or imagined. Unless we take action and face a bully, the bully will continue to bully. The movie chronicles the saga and five-year legal battle of the Sung Family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York– which was accused of mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., and the only U.S. bank to face criminal charges in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The film is about the Abacus Federal Savings Bank of Chinatown New York City, a financial house built through the sweat and toil of Thomas Sung, who opened the institution because he … Photo by Robert K. Chin. This is not uncommon for me, because I've tried my hand at telling different kinds of documentary stories. Over the next five years, Abacus and its founder Thomas Sung fought to clear the bank's name. 215.898.7483, Copyright 2021 The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. We are truly appreciative to Steve James, Mark Mitten, and the entire film team for making this documentary. Traces the story of illegal Chinese immigrant Cheng Chui Ping, who built a human smuggling conglomerate with links to a violent Chinatown gang, an organization that was exposed by New York's "Jade Squad" and the FBI twelve years before Ping ... Thomas Sung seems like a model for the Asian-American immigrant experience. He helped found the Abacus Federal Savings Bank in Chinatown during the 80s to serve the local community. In 1984, the Abacus Federal Savings Bank was founded by Thomas Sung, a Shanghai-born lawyer who wanted to give something back to the Chinatown community. Ask a question. Although we have gone through a lot, we also have a lot to be grateful for. ... “Forget it, Jake. 76 m. Abacus Federal Savings … He fears that the evidence presented over the course of the long trial suggests that “everyone the bank deals with is a liar” and that “Chinese people are not law abiding.”. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail tells the incredible saga of the Chinese immigrant Sung family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York. News and Announcements. Although acknowledging that “doing anything customized in this environment is very difficult,” Fannie Mae committed itself to “doing whatever we can to develop solutions that meet the needs of your culturally unique clientele.”. Going into making this film, I'd not spent hardly any time in Chinatown, beyond going to a restaurant or walking the streets like a tourist. Found inside – Page 108He could really use the abacus fast . " Bloch observed , " He did a lot of business with Chinese people . We had a big Chinatown in Stockton in those days ... 6/3/2017 Abacus Bank CEO Jill Sung, along with William Hwang, VP of Community Relations and Boya Li, Marketing Manager, held financial literacy seminars for 52 students from the New York Chinese School in Chinatown, NYC. The Bank operates seven branches across New York City, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and … In 1984 the only company criminally indicted in the wake of the 3,000 loans it sold to Fannie,. To remember that we are all part of a community, we also have a to... Notifications to get the news sent straight to you to know and exercise our rights a Small institution... 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