Ride-hailing apps have been disruptive to New York City’s taxi industry and its lenders.

Competition from ride-hailing apps affecting taxi industry in Big Apple

Ride-hailing apps such as Uber and Lyft have been so disruptive to New York City’s taxi industry, they are causing lenders to fail.

Three New York-based credit unions that specialized in loaning money against taxi cab medallions, the hard-to-get licenses that allow the city’s traditional cab fleet to operate, have been placed into conservatorship as the value of those medallions has plummeted.

Just three years ago, cab owners and investors were paying as much as $1.3 million for a medallion. Now they are worth less than half that, and some medallion owners owe more on their loans than the medallions are worth.

“You’ve got borrowers who are under water. This is just like the subprime loan crisis,” said Keith Leggett, a credit union analyst and former senior economist at the American Bankers Association.

LOMTO Federal Credit Union, which was founded by taxi drivers in 1936 for mutual assistance, was placed into conservatorship by the National Credit Union Administration on June 26 “because of unsafe and unsound practices.”

New York City has the nation’s largest taxi industry, with more than 13,000 medallions.

Marcelino Hervias bought his medallion in 1990 for about $120,000 and thought its value would hit $2 million by the time he was ready to retire.

Instead, the 58-year-old said he owes $541,000 and is driving 12 to 16 hours a day to make ends meet.

“I celebrate my kids’ birthdays over the phone. Why?” Hervias said.

While some medallions are held by large owners with fleets, owning a single medallion was long seen as a ticket to the middle class for immigrants like Hervias, who is from Peru.

Many of them now owe more on their medallion loans than they originally paid for the medallions because they used their equity in the medallion for a home, a child’s education or other expenses.

Hervias said he borrowed against his medallion to pay for medical care for his mother, a new car and a visit to his homeland.

Richard Drew The Associated Press Taxi driver and taxi medallion owner Marcelino Hervias, in his cab on New York’s Upper West Side.