Inner City Press says Bank of America & Citigroup Discriminate Against Black & Latino Home Buyers
Saturday, April 9, 2005 at 05:45PM
TheSpook
A New York-based community group on
Monday accused Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. of charging
higher rates on mortgage loans to black and Hispanic home buyers than
to whites. The financial institutions countered that the data were
flawed and that their loan policies are fair. The allegations by Inner
City Press-Fair Finance Watch, a consumer advocacy group, were based on
the first of a series of contentious reports made public by the
government under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. HMDA requires
financial institutions to report information on home loans priced above
comparable Treasury rates. First-lien loans must be reported if they
exceed the Treasury rate by 3 percentage points, and second mortgages
by 5 percentage points. The Inner City Press said its analysis of data
filed by Citigroup found that "African American borrowers are more than
four times more likely to receive a rate-spread loan than white
borrowers." It said that Hispanic borrowers "are more than six times
more likely to receive a rate-spread loan from Citigroup than are
non-Hispanic white borrowers." The group also said members of both
minority groups were turned down for loans more frequently than whites.
"The nation's largest bank, Citigroup is also its most disparate when
it comes to confining people of color to higher-cost home purchase
loans," said attorney Matthew Lee, the group's executive director. [more]
Article originally appeared on (http://brownwatch.com/).
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