Public Meeting Regarding First Chicago and Banc One
Thursday, August 13, 1998
Transcript of Panel Nine
19 MS. CANNON: Good afternoon. My name is
20 Bessie Cannon and I am President of SEIU Local
21 880. I appreciate the opportunity to testify on
22 Banc One's awful record throughout the Midwest.
23 It is terribly unfortunate that the
24 Federal Reserve is not holding hearings in more
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1 than one city.
2 REVEREND LONG: Amen.
3 MS. CANNON: Millions of Americans cannot
4 possibly be represented at one hearing to give
5 input on a merger that will affect citizens from
6 Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. And if anyone has
7 the resources to hold hearings in every city
8 affected by this merger, it is the Federal
9 Reserve.
10 One thing is clear about both Banc One and
11 First Chicago NBD. They are first -- first of the
12 worst! In Denver, Detroit, and Milwaukee,
13 minorities were rejected much more frequently than
14 white applicants for every kind of housing loan
15 that the bank makes. Even more troubling, it
16 appears that Banc One routinely steers minorities
17 to more costly and inferior subprime loans.
18 In Denver, Banc One received no
19 applications from either African Americans or
20 Latinos for conventional mortgages in 1996. Not a
21 single applicant in 1995. In 1995, it took only
22 six applications from either African Americans or
23 Latinos.
24 Moreover, there is not -- this is not
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1 because Denver is a predominantly white city.
2 Indeed, the majority of the residents of the city
3 of Denver are now members of racial minorities, nor
4 is it because the minority population of Denver is
5 so poor that they can't afford to buy homes. Over
6 half of Denver's minority households are
7 homeowners.
8 The reason that Banc One gets no home
9 loans applications from minorities in Denver is
10 because Banc One doesn't market to minority
11 communities. Instead, Banc One pumps credit into
12 the very whitest parts of Denver like it was
13 water.
14 In 1996, more than 40 percent of Banc
15 One's mortgage loans were made to neighborhoods
16 where more than 90 percent of the residents are
17 white. An additional 40 percent of the bank's
18 loans went to the neighborhoods where whites made
19 up between 70 and 90 percent of the population.
20 Just two percent of the mortgages were
21 made to neighborhoods where over half the
22 population is nonwhite. And since the data shows
23 that the bank made no loans to Latinos or blacks
24 that year, we know that two percent of the loans
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1 that did go to our neighborhoods did not go to us.
2 In Detroit, First Chicago NBD's
3 performance is similar, but even more sinister,
4 given the size of the African American population
5 there. Although the City of Detroit is over
6 70 percent black, the entire Metro area is 22
7 percent black.
8 In 1996, NBD took only two percent of its
9 applications from blacks. The bank took 93 percent
10 of applications from whites. In real terms, this
11 means that African Americans are 11 times more
12 likely to reside in Detroit than First Chicago
13 NBD's applicant pool.
14 While there was fewer applications from
15 minorities, the few that did apply were rejected
16 more frequently than white applicants. African
17 Americans were rejected nearly 40 percent more
18 frequently.
19 Incredibly, this disparity widens for the
20 wealthiest minority applicants. Upper-income
21 African Americans were rejected twice as frequently
22 as upper-income white applicants.
23 In Milwaukee, Banc One has aggressively
24 pushed its home improvement lending and refinanced
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1 loans while ignoring conventional mortgages. But
2 with Banc One, we find that no matter what type of
3 home loan we look at, the pattern is the same;
4 African American applicants are rejected many times
5 more frequently than whites. African Americans
6 were rejected three times more frequently than
7 white applicants for refinance and home improvement
8 loans in 1996.
9 Last time I looked, racial discrimination
10 is still against the law in our country. And when
11 a multi-million dollar bank like Banc One breaks
12 the law and denies people access to credit on the
13 basis of their skin color, they should be punished,
14 not rewarded. It is time for the Federal Reserve
15 Board to punish Banc One. It is time for the
16 Federal Reserve to just say no. Thank you.
17 MS. SMITH: Thank you very much.
18 Reverend Long?
19 REVEREND LONG: I bring you greetings from the
20 near east side of Indianapolis where I pastor a
21 congregation and also serve as board member for the
22 Near East Side Community Organization.
23 I've been asked by the Board President,
24 who could not come today, to speak as the official
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1 representative of the Near East Side Community
2 Organization and also a copartner with the
3 Organization for a New East Side and to say to the
4 Federal Reserve Board: Please listen to us.
5 Listen to the fact that over 50 percent of
6 our populant folks are neighbors who live in and
7 around the Banc One branch that was closed in a
8 rather cold-hearted way in the midst of the
9 winter.
10 They have affected us -- excuse me. They
11 have affected us quite negatively. They have cared
12 little for listening to us. And so we come here
13 asking that this not be the last time that you hear
14 folks from Indianapolis, that rather than Chicago,
15 that you come to Indianapolis, preferably, send
16 whatever faction you need to the East Side, since
17 our residents are too poor to make this journey.
18 They cannot afford to.
19 So I come speaking on behalf and along
20 with my brothers and sisters of the East Side
21 saying Banc One has been a horrible neighbor to
22 us. I don't need to quote you all the raw data.
23 You all have that. I trust that your education
24 lets you glean that for yourself and understand
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1 what bad business partners Banc One and NBD are.
2 I want to share with you an example of how
3 that has lived out in the Near East Side. The
4 Woodriff Place Branch on 10th Street, which is a
5 major corridor for the Near East Side, we were
6 notified was closing, not might close, would close
7 because it was no longer a money-making, profitable
8 branch.
9 They were a self-fulfilling prophecy, as
10 we say in the church business, because they made
11 sure it was not profitable by cutting business
12 services right and left, cutting personnel
13 services, and as their records shows to us
14 constantly, they are not making adequate small
15 business loans or adequate home mortgage loans
16 available in our census tracts. They have all our
17 money.
18 I am a Banc One client, have been in the
19 two years I've been in Indianapolis, because they
20 have such an overwhelming majority that trying to
21 get to another branch to adequately access services
22 is virtually impossible because they've run
23 everybody out of town.
24 If this merger goes through, we fear the
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1 real loss of the NBD branch that is in the Near
2 East Side. In spite of feigned attempts by
3 Banc One/NBD to say that they are going to ask the
4 Department of Justice to exempt that branch from
5 divestiture, we believe them as far as we can throw
6 them. And since we can't throw them, we don't
7 believe them.
8 They have lied to us time and again. They
9 told us that they were going to work with us in
10 trying to find an alternative way to use that
11 branch that would best serve the neighborhood. And
12 that simply meant they weren't going to allow it to
13 be a pawn shop or a check-cashing organization.
14 You know, there are other distracting
15 factors to our neighborhood besides pawn shops,
16 bars, and check-cashing organizations. We try and
17 sit down with them in good faith negotiations.
18 According to their response to you all
19 from the Near East Side Community Organization's
20 letter asking for denial of this merger, what they
21 have in paper isn't, in fact, what they did. It is
22 not what they said to us. It is not how they
23 treated us.
24 There again, they have the money. They
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1 have the attorneys. They can write it to make it
2 sound just exactly like they hope you will want to
3 hear. They don't want you to hear the truth. They
4 don't want you to hear us say they did not
5 negotiate in good faith with us.
6 They told us that the branch would be
7 donated to the Near East Side Community Development
8 Credit Union. And they gave us first one month to
9 make that a reality. You cannot transact that kind
10 of business in four weeks' time. They then backed
11 it up. We won a small victory.
12 They said they would give us three
13 months. And by the time that that three months was
14 up, we had already found out that they had sold the
15 building to the holding company that is purchasing
16 property around Indianapolis for CBS Drugstore.
17 The drugstore is not what's going in
18 there. We have found out, through East Side
19 Community Development Corporation that, in fact,
20 they are in high-level negotiations with another
21 credit union to go in place in that branch. But
22 quite frankly, we don't know what that will be
23 either, nor how it will be a detracting factor to
24 our small community development credit union.
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1 They've been poor partners. They always
2 tell us that the ultimate answer has to come from
3 Columbus. When we ask who that is, they tell us
4 too bad, so sad, you lose. We won't tell you. You
5 only get to talk to us. That is not good faith.
6 Thank you.
7 MS. SMITH: Thank you. Ms. Rice?
8 MS. RICE: Good morning -- I'm sorry, good
9 afternoon. My name is Bobby Rice. I'm from
10 Dallas, Texas and I am here to speak about the
11 problems we are all having in Dallas, Texas.
12 I am from a low- and moderate-income area
13 in Dallas, Texas. I am against Banc One merging
14 because of my own experiences with Banc One and
15 because of stories that I have heard from others
16 about their treatment by the bank.
17 Banc One is not a bank that does a very
18 good job servicing people in my community. Some
19 people in my community have a difficult time
20 understanding the complex banking fee structure and
21 no one takes the time to explain the fee to them
22 until it is too late or they're just rude to us,
23 insensitive, and in some cases, they are racist.
24 For example, there's a man that lives in
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1 Dallas, Texas by the name of Ogan Defreeze.
2 Mr. Defreeze is an -- I'm sorry, African American
3 senior citizen living on a fixed income of about
4 $500 a month. He has been a Banc One customer for
5 many years. He even banked at the same bank before
6 it got its name changed to Banc One.
7 He always went in to use the teller
8 because that is what he had always done. The only
9 problem was that Banc One decided to charge people
10 two dollars to use a teller. Now, two dollars may
11 not sound a lot to you all or some people, but as
12 low-income people, we have to think of our budget
13 and not waste our money.
14 Now, Mr. Defreeze wrote checks to pay
15 bills, all money he thought he had, but because of
16 the fee, he bounced checks and had to pay bounced
17 check fees. He estimated that Banc One took almost
18 $200 from him in bouncing check fees before someone
19 explained about the teller fee. $200 is nearly
20 half of his monthly income.
21 Banc One also lost a $10 deposit of
22 Mr. Defreeze's. Then they found it. Banc One
23 found the $10 deposit. You know what they done?
24 They refused to refund a bounced check fee that
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1 occurred due to their mistake, which is Banc One.
2 I have had a similar experience myself. I
3 have a saving account at Banc One. The reason I
4 have a saving account is exactly -- I have a saving
5 account at Banc One. And the reason why I'm having
6 the account is because I need to save my money. I
7 am also on a fixed income. I am supporting my
8 grandchildren by adopting them and I must save as
9 much as I can.
10 However, Banc One charged me ten dollars
11 per month to maintain my account. That's not
12 fair. The only way the service charge is forgiven
13 is if I maintain -- maintain a $1,500 balance at
14 all time. If I cannot possible afford to keep this
15 amount, then why must I pay this outrageous sum of
16 money per month?
17 I am penalized just for being poor. I
18 used to have a checking account also with Banc One,
19 but I found it is impossible to balance my book
20 accordingly to the statement. Many time there were
21 mistakes on the statement, but the bank never took
22 credit for them. I don't know how they do this,
23 but somehow or another the statement will win, not
24 correct, win. It's no way that you can prove it
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1 the way they do the statement.
2 I would have certain of my drafting twice
3 monthly instead of once. So what Banc One does, I
4 wanted Banc One only to draft one check per month,
5 but nothing were ever done because they drafted
6 twice. When they drafted twice on my account, that
7 made three of my bank -- three of my check bounce.
8 Because as a low income person, I only have certain
9 time -- I mean, a certain amount of money to
10 spend.
11 Many time there was mistakes on the
12 statement, but the bank never took credit for
13 them. I would have certain amount of draft -- of
14 twice instead of one, but nothing was ever done to
15 make these correction to my account.
16 Oftentime because mine was drafted more
17 than once or my deposit was not added to my account
18 when they was supposed to, my check will bounce.
19 Rather than the bank pick up the charge for their
20 mistake, I would have to pay the overdraft fee of
21 25 per check. That's not fair.
22 I try calling several time to speak to
23 someone in a management position, but I was not
24 able to speak to the person or I also left a
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1 message and no one called me back. The Soria
2 family had similar problems with Banc One and their
3 account.
4 MS. SMITH: Ms. Rice, we'll be glad to enter
5 the remainder of your statement into the record.
6 If you'd like to take half a minute to bring it to
7 conclusion.
8 MS. RICE: Oh, I'm sorry. I got off into it.
9 I just got off into it. I told them it was like
10 I'm -- okay. Only thing -- I thought you said I
11 had three minutes.
12 MS. SMITH: No. 30 seconds, half a minute.
13 MS. RICE: Half a minute, okay.
14 Only thing I want to comment on Banc One,
15 that they should realize that there are low income
16 people as well as people that has money. We also
17 would like to buy a boat and a Cadillac too, but we
18 cannot. So help us too.
19 MS. SMITH: Thank you very much.
20 MR. SIMS: Good afternoon. My name is Reverend
21 Wesley Simms, and I'm from Dallas, Texas.
22 We're opposed to the merger of Banc One/
23 First Chicago, and I'm here to testify to Banc
24 One's service in low income and minority
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1 communities and consumers.
2 In general, Banc One under serves and red
3 lines minority neighborhoods and rejects African
4 Americans and Latinos.
5 Banc One's performance in Dallas lagged
6 significantly behind the market averages. First,
7 in Dallas, African Americans were rejected for home
8 purchase loans nearly three times as frequently as
9 white applicants in 1996. This rate is higher than
10 the market average of conventional home lenders
11 rejecting African Americans at twice a rate of
12 white applicants.
13 Even African Americans above 120 percent
14 of the median income were rejected more than two
15 and a half times as frequently as whites of similar
16 incomes. In fact, the African American were
17 rejected at rates double than that of moderate
18 income and white applicants, 35 and 17 percent
19 respectively.
20 In Dallas, Latinos receive comparable
21 treatment at the Banc One offices. Latinos were
22 rejected more than twice as frequently as white
23 applicants for conventional mortgages in 1996. And
24 this rate, again, is higher than the market average
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1 rejection rate of 1.78 for all Dallas lenders.
2 Upper-income Latinos were also rejected
3 twice as frequently as upper-income white
4 applicants.
5 A similar pattern is found in Houston
6 where the African Americans and Latinos are
7 rejected much more frequently than white
8 applicants. African Americans were rejected more
9 than three and a half times as frequently as whites
10 in 1996, up slightly from the 1995 of just shy of
11 three and a half.
12 This figure is more than double the market
13 average of African Americans being rejected, more
14 than one and a half times as frequently as white.
15 Incredibly, the rejection rates for
16 upper-income African Americans is nearly triple
17 that of moderate income white applicants, 29 and 11
18 percent respectively.
19 The picture was no brighter for Houston
20 Latinos. Latinos was rejected nearly twice as
21 frequently as white applicants in 1996. This
22 figure is also an increase from the one and a half
23 times Latinos were rejected in comparison to white
24 applicants in 1995.
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1 Again, the ratio is measurably higher than
2 the market average, where Latinos were rejected 27
3 percent more frequently than whites. Upper-income
4 Latinos were rejected nearly twice as frequently as
5 moderate-income white applicants.
6 These figures are appalling. If the
7 stories from Dallas consumers are any guide, these
8 numbers may be understating the problem.
9 Minorities in Texas don't have a chance at Banc One
10 lenders' office.
11 Meanwhile, many neighborhoods are in
12 desperate need of access to credit and new
13 homeowners. It is unlikely that they will find it
14 at Banc One. ACORN has discovered that Banc One is
15 most likely to lend to the whitest and wealthiest
16 neighborhoods in Houston and in Dallas.
17 In Dallas, 23 percent of the nearly 400
18 conventional mortgage loans Banc One made in 1996
19 went to census tracts where whites made up more
20 than 90 percent of the population. Only 11 percent
21 went to census tracts where minorities made up the
22 majority of the population. A mere 4 percent of
23 those originations went to census tracts below
24 50 percent of the area median income. 88 percent
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1 of those low-income tracts received no loans at
2 all.
3 In Houston, the pattern was, if anything,
4 more troubling. 45 percent of Banc One's more than
5 700 conventional loans went to census tracts where
6 whites made up more than 80 percent of the
7 population. Only 13 percent of the loans went to
8 census tracts where minorities made up the majority
9 of the population. Less than half of those went to
10 the census tracts where minorities made up more
11 than 75 percent of the population. A mere 2
12 percent of the conventional mortgages went to
13 census tracts where a household income was below
14 50 percent of the area median. Of the 117
15 low-income census tracts in Houston, 86 percent
16 received no conventional mortgages.
17 Taken together, these two facts show a
18 dual pattern of rejection of Banc One in Texas.
19 Minority individuals are frequently turned down for
20 loans at Banc One, more frequently than their white
21 counterparts. Low income and minorities
22 neighborhoods are likewise unserved by Banc One.
23 The road to home ownership is essential to build
24 wealth of families and to shore up neighborhoods
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1 and communities. Homeowners build equity in their
2 families and their neighborhoods benefit. With
3 inadequate access to fair credit, these
4 neighborhoods and families suffer unduly. Banc One
5 is a contributor to this unfairness.
6 ACORN has tried to get commitments from
7 Banc One to turn these problems around. ACORN met
8 with Banc One with the help of our Congresswoman
9 Eddie Bernice Johnson. I was at that hearing. And
10 I asked weren't they concerned that so few loans
11 went to African Americans. They kept changing the
12 subject talking about other lending like credit
13 card lending and personal loans. Well, getting
14 people in debt is not the same thing as helping
15 people to become homeowners. We need more
16 homeowners in our neighborhoods.
17 The banker at the meeting also kept
18 talking about the loans they do with affordable
19 housing groups. We heard some of that here this
20 morning. That's great, but ACORN is a group that's
21 concerned about what happens to the ordinary
22 everyday person who walks into the bank. With Banc
23 One, they seem not to make very many loans to make
24 people homeowners.
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1 At the meeting, we asked -- just one
2 thing -- that Banc One do one of two things.
3 Either make a commitment matching the commitments
4 in Detroit and Chicago as to how much they will
5 lend to minority and low- to moderate-income
6 neighborhoods or tell what program they would use
7 to do a better job of lending to minorities. They
8 did not make either commitment.
9 The Federal Reserve should take this
10 opportunity to address this inadequate record and
11 reject the proposed merger without practical and
12 workable changes in Banc One's operation. I thank
13 you very much.
14 MS. SMITH: I do think you have the record
15 today for how fast you speak.
16 MR. RICE: They gave us a book to read, and now
17 they said read it in four minutes. No way.
18 MS. SMITH: Mr. Taylor.
19 MR. TAYLOR: Good afternoon. My name is James
20 Taylor.
21 MS. SMITH: Would you use the mic, please?
22 MR. TAYLOR: Is that better? Good afternoon.
23 First give an honor to the great creator.
24 My name is James Taylor. I'm a community organizer
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1 for the organization for a New East Side.
2 Our organization opposes the merger of
3 these banks unless there are clear and definite
4 commitments to lending, investments, employment,
5 services and procurement of services for low and
6 middle income Indiana residents, senior citizens,
7 handicapped, those on fixed incomes and Indiana
8 residents of color.
9 Mega mergers often have a harmful effect
10 on communities, but this merger would create an
11 unprecedented mega bank in Indianapolis, banking
12 service monopoly that's going to decrease
13 competition.
14 In the last several years, branches have
15 closed and fees have gone up for most of us.
16 First-time home buyers have decreased lending, as
17 we've heard before, especially after mergers.
18 Some of the harmful effects of mega
19 mergers, -- and I'll just be brief and give other
20 folks a chance to speak, too -- the creation of
21 these large banks, if it doesn't create a monopoly,
22 it definitely diminishes competition. And from
23 what I understand, competition is good for
24 consumers because true competition gives us the
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1 best services at the lowest rate.
2 Branches close. That adds to the
3 instability in any neighborhood when a financial
4 institution like a bank leaves. And there are too
5 many institutions, financial institutions, in
6 communities like banks. Higher fees affect all of
7 us, low to moderate income, moderate to high
8 income. Some can afford that better than others,
9 as you can see.
10 What happens if these mega mergers fail?
11 I don't want to wish anything bad on Banc One, NBD
12 or anything else, but if my memory serves me
13 correctly, the American public has paid 800 billion
14 dollars to bail out a savings and loan fiasco that
15 wasn't insured as well.
16 This addresses the safety and soundness
17 and stability of banking services in Indiana and in
18 Indianapolis. And even though Indianapolis is the
19 capital, the city that appears from the data we've
20 looked at that will be most affected will be
21 Lafayette, where Banc One will have a 56 market
22 share. And I may be a little over on that, so, you
23 know, that stands to be corrected.
24 Special devastation to the low and
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1 moderate income communities. Most of the folks in
2 our communities -- when I speak of low to moderate
3 income, that's 40 percent of the American public,
4 too, if my numbers are right. But in these lower
5 income communities and these low to moderate income
6 communities, transportation is limited to go the
7 distance to the nearest bank -- the nearest bank as
8 these other branches close.
9 Limited financial resources are eaten away
10 by higher fees. Loss of banking services yield
11 less financial stability to our neighborhoods.
12 What that puts in place are check cashing
13 places, pawn shops -- oh, and underground economy.
14 We all know that means guns, drugs, theft, violence
15 and the things that go with underground economies.
16 We don't need that in our neighborhood on the Near
17 East Side. We have it. We'd rather have banks in
18 and guns out.
19 What we're asking for pretty simply is a
20 moratorium on the venture and have the Fed have
21 local public hearings. That could be in
22 Indianapolis. That could be in Lafayette. As long
23 as you have one in the state of Indiana, I think we
24 can get folks there to satisfy that.
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1 We believe it's time and demand that it's
2 time for the banks to work with communities toward
3 a plan to provide more sound financial planning for
4 our communities. We want the banks to provide for
5 stronger CRA agreements with our federal
6 communities.
7 We don't need bureaucrats who aren't the
8 experts in our communities. We need community
9 folks who can speak to the banks so that the banks
10 know how they affect us and how, in fact, we can
11 help them.
12 The banking situation is a win-win
13 situation if the bank takes the aggressive posture
14 that it's going to lend to us with the products and
15 services that are designed to work in our
16 communities, but they don't.
17 And last, we would like to provide for a
18 community monitoring mechanism for our state so
19 that we can enjoy the luxury of seeing how the
20 banks are working with our communities.
21 In our community, Banc One and NBD are the
22 two largest real estate renters downtown. When
23 these banks combine, we're going to have a deficit
24 for office space because they're the number one and
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1 the number two occupants. That's not going to be
2 just bank employees. That's going to have an
3 effect on folks that run the elevators, wash the
4 windows, park the cars in the garages. It's going
5 to have a devastating effect.
6 I thank you for your time.
7 MS. SMITH: Thank you very much.
8 Any questions?
9 And I want to remind you that -- to be
10 sure to give your written statements if you haven't
11 already provided them to our people at the
12 registration desk so that they can be entered fully
13 into the record. So thank you very much for coming
14 this afternoon.
15 Okay. We'll start with Ms. Rangan,
16 please, if someone will pass her the mic.