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Isabel Cruz
CRA officer for Eastern Massachusetts, M&T Bank
Age: 33
Industry experience: 7 months
Isabel Cruz is a familiar face to many in the housing advocacy world from her time at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership helping run their ONE and ONE+Boston affordable mortgage programs. Now, she’s taking that experience to lead Boston-area Community Reinvestment Act work at M&T Bank. The Buffalo-based, $203 billion-asset lender has a long track record of earning top marks in its compliance with the anti-redlining law.
Cruz has avidly pursued a career in community work since graduating college, when a two-year AmeriCorps stint took her to San Jose, California before returning to her home state for a dual master’s program in community development and business administration at Clark University in Worcester. The four years she spent at MHP following her master’s program, she said, showed her the power financial institutions can have in attacking the racial homeownership and wealth gaps in Massachusetts.
Q: It’s a huge jump from MHP to M&T. What was the attraction there?
A: I get that question a lot, actually. M&T is a large regional bank, but it has a community banking model. That mission is really just a huge piece of what drew me to the bank. So we’re a large regional bank, but we understand to best support our customers and communities, we need to have a meaningful presence in our local communities. With my background in CRA from my work on the ONE Mortgage program and mortgage lending for low- to moderate-income homebuyers, I [saw a chance] to have broader impact. It’s not just affordable mortgage lending, it’s small business community investments. Being able to work at a lending institution that has the money, the power to do good, and to have an impact in my local community was a huge factor.
Q: For our readers who have never met a CRA officer, what is your day-to-day like?
A: I serve as the liaison between M&T Bank and communities in Eastern Massachusetts. I’m maintaining partnerships [M&T and People’s United Bank] had with local organizations, but Massachusetts is so robust in our number of community development organizations so I’m also introducing myself and M&T Bank to local organizations and identifying opportunities for collaboration and partnership. I’m learning from community leaders and community members what the needs are and where are the opportunities for M&T and other banks to show up within the community.
Also, our mortgage team has been staffing up, and we have a CRA-specific loan officer in Massachusetts, so I work closely with them just around again first-time homebuyer products. And then another piece of our community banking model: Decisions are made at a local level, so I sit on our local charitable committee and so we review grant and sponsorship applications from local organizations around programmatic grants and event sponsorships. And then I came into this role in the middle of another CRA exam, so I was recently doing a lot of data collecting and analysis across all business lines and making sure that I’m supporting our large CRA team there.
Q: Is M&T looking to grow its CRA activity, beyond what People’s United was doing in Massachusetts?
A: M&T Bank has consistently earned the highest CRA rating possible; it ties back to our community bank model. We know we’re only as successful as the communities that we serve. And it’s an ongoing effort – alignment with community banking, and then integrating [information] across business lines. So, with the acquisition of People’s United [in 2022], there’s been a joining of cultures, and what I’ve found is everybody is committed to the work, committed to being good stewards for our communities.
Q: Will the bank have areas of focus? Your hiring suggests M&T is going to be leveraging your experience to make a push into more homeownership lending for low- and moderate-income folks.
A: We’ve been rebuilding our mortgage team, we have sales managers and as I mentioned before, a CRA-specific loan officer. In Massachusetts, we are lucky to have two state housing finance agencies that both have mortgage products for first-time homebuyers. So, we’re working on getting on board and offering MassHousing products and MHP’s ONE Mortgage and ONE+Boston products to be sure that we are serving all communities. That’s definitely been the biggest area for growth given that there was about a year that People’s United just had one loan officer one or two covering the state. I think we’re at about 15 or 16 people on our mortgage team, now. So, it’s staffing up training, and then just working again, across our business lines with technology to be able to be up and ready and offering both state [mortgage] programs.
Q: Are you planning on targeting any sort of specific parts of Massachusetts for this like Gateway Cities, given their relatively lower prices?
A: My mission is to close the racial homeownership gap, and that’s something that I worked on every day at MHP. That’s also why the ONE Mortgage program was created, in response to mortgage lending disparities. So yes, Gateway Cities [are important], but I think it’s really important for buyers to be able to choose where they want to live.
Q: How do the current lending environment and interest rates complicate efforts to grow access to home ownership?
A: I think it is complicated for everybody. Last year, mortgage rates were at 2 percent, and now they’re close to 7 percent. That impacts not only people’s monthly payments, but also what size of a loan you one can, can qualify for, and incomes and wages are stagnant. I think plugging the ONE Mortgage and ONE+Boston programs [will help]. They’re pulling federal money, state money in to help with interest rate buydowns. For me, this brings it back to the importance of CRA and investing in one’s community and making sure that everyone and anyone has access to financial resources and credit, regardless of their income level.
Q: Does any of your work have any synergies with stuff that’s coming down the pike from other parts of the bank?
A: M&T has multicultural small business innovation labs, part of our commitment to the growth and future empowerment of these businesses. These range from five to seven weeks and include courses covering topics such as business planning, credit fundamentals, marketing, branding, networking and community resources. These are led by M&T Bank experts and community partners and end with a pitch competition with cash prizes. There was a lab that just wrapped a Small Business Lab that just wrapped up in Harlem [in New York City], and that was in partnership with Carver Federal Savings Bank. There’s one going on currently in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and in Massachusetts our MetroWest regional sales manager, she covers Worcester up to Lowell, and she is working on establishing a small business lab in Worcester this summer, followed by Lowell soon thereafter.
Cruz’s Five Favorite Local Winter Vegetables
- Rainbow Carrots
- Turnips (including greens)
- Radish
- Kohlrabi
- Bok Choi
