Black applicants are more than twice as likely to be denied a US mortgage as white counterparts declaring the same incomes, according to a Financial Times analysis of public data that shows people of colour still face hurdles to home ownership despite laws aimed at ending such disparities.
The findings raise questions about the methods and data used by the credit-scoring agencies on which banks rely when making lending decisions. Their role is central even at major mortgage providers such as Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, where rejection rates are 1.5 times higher for Black applicants than similar white ones.
“It appears that communities of colour are still being discriminated against by the biggest financial institutions in this country, notwithstanding 40 years of a legal requirement to do otherwise,” said Dennis Kelleher, chief executive of investor advocacy group Better Markets. “Clearly the law and the banking regulators have failed.”