THE Inner City Press (ICP) might seem like a tiny thorn in the paw of a financial titan, but the group has scored important victories for its members against banks just as big as HSBC.

The ICP was founded as The Homsteaders Association in 1987 in the South Bronx by a group of poor families who needed housing. The group organised to begin taking possession of and repairing abandoned buildings. The biggest problem its members faced was lack of access to banks and mortgage companies.

The group seized on the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, a federal law that requires US banks to fairly serve low-income and moderate-income neighbourhoods. Every time a major bank or lender with operations in New York revealed a merger or acquisition plan, ICP would challenge the move to make sure that branches in, and deals offered to, poor neighbourhoods were not lost.

In 1992, ICP sealed its first significant victory after it challenged an acquisition proposal by The Bank of New York that aimed to exclude the South Bronx and Harlem from its service area. After a lengthy legal battle ICP won, forcing the bank to expand its service territory. In 1993 the company agreed to offer $5 million worth of loans to the areas.

ICP challenged the expansion of five other banks in 1994. In response, Britain’s NatWest, and Dime Savings, a local bank, opened the first new bank branches in the South Bronx in 20 years.

In two cases, local banks made $1 billion and $3 billion of loans available to poor areas. Since then ICP has taken on Bank One, Bank of America, First Union, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Bankers Trust, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo and Lehman Brothers over issues such as branch closures.