After being accused of discriminatory lending practices, one of the largest banks in the United States has agreed to pay $13.5 million to resolve allegations that it redlined predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods located in Charlotte and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the state of North Carolina and the U.S. Justice Department announced.
Between 2017 and 2021, First National Bank of Pennsylvania, which acquired Yadkin Bank in 2017, allegedly did not provide mortgage lending services to predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in the two major North Carolina cities, the federal complaint states .
The complaint also alleges that the mortgage lender was disproportionately focused on the cities’ white-populated areas and discouraged Black and Hispanic people seeking credit in those areas from getting home loans, according to a news release Monday from the Justice Department.
White residents make up over 43 percent of Charlotte’s population of over 890,000, while Black people account for around 35 percent and Hispanic or Latino people account for over 15 percent, according to 2022 Census Bureau data.