Fed Made HMDA Bias Referrals

Earlier this year, the Federal Reserve Board referred three banks to the Department of Justice for further legal action after concluding that they engaged in a pattern of discrimination in mortgage lending."The Fed has conducted target reviews of institutions for pricing discrimination" based on Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, Fed staffer Sandra Braunstein told a House Financial Services subcommittee. "As result of these reviews, we referred two nationwide lenders to the DOJ for mortgage pricing discrimination," she testified. Ms. Braunstein is the director of the Fed's Consumer and Community Affairs Division. The third referral involved an institution with loan policies that prohibited lending on Native American lands and on row houses in African-American neighborhoods.