Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2017)

This Academy Award nominee is streaming on Netflix and is a really interesting story about the case of Abacus Federal Savings, a bank catering to New York’s Chinese immigrant community that became the only U.S. lender to face criminal charges stemming from the 2008 financial crisis. Large-scale institutions like Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase escaped criminal prosecution for their role in the nationwide mortgage meltdown, but with comparatively tiny Abacus it was another matter. Prosecutors, the film argues, unfairly chose to make an example out of it.
The film’s protagonists are Thomas Sung, his wife Hwei Lin and their four daughters—Vera, Jill, Chanterelle and Heather—owners of Abacus. Thomas, a Chinese immigrant himself, founded the bank in the 1980s to provide credit to fellow community members who struggled to obtain loans from traditional lenders.  It was a practice that made them vulnerable, but that also served their community in a way that traditional banks could not.
However, in 2009, by which time daughter Jill had taken over running Abacus from her father, the bank discovered one of its loan officers had been forging information on mortgage applications and sought kickbacks from a borrower. Instead of burying the misconduct, they brought it to the attention of regulators.  That was an error that came back to bite them.  Their culture dictated that when wronged, you fight for your honor, and so they spent a small fortune fighting the government.
 The film explores the why of it, as well as raising frank questions about fairness, and the prejudices that might have driven the prosecution.