There is a gaping hole in the financial system in North Minneapolis, where people are preyed upon by payday lenders and fringe bankers, according to Debra Hurston, executive director of the Association for Black Economic Power. Hurston is creating a credit union for this community to help break residents out of a cycle of exploitation and debt. But the issue is far bigger than one city, and the opportunity is one that any bank or credit union can seize.

The 50 companies that made American Banker’s annual list are being recognized for establishing strong workplace cultures, offering robust benefits packages and giving employees the room to do their jobs well.

Companies on the Best Places to Work in Fintech list offer sabbaticals or generous vacation time, which helps attract young talent and lets veteran employees re-energize.

Breaking barriers to education unites the team at Mpower Financing, an international student loan company with employees from more than a dozen countries that is ranked No. 1 on this year's Best Places to Work in Fintech.

The pending budget reconciliation legislation should retain measures meant to support minority homebuyers writes the President of the National Association Of Real Estate Brokers.

The brokerage will eliminate its minimum housing price policy, which determines who can access its services, among other changes.

Allowing VantageScore to compete in the mainstream mortgage market may help to close the racial homeownership and financial wealth gap by increasing homeownership opportunities for underserved populations, writes the president and CEO of HomeFree-USA.

The bank asked to move the discrimination case from a Black magistrate to a supervising White district judge, which attorneys for plaintiffs said was an attempt to ‘redline the federal court.’

The municipality and the bank have been at odds over similar issues in the past, and no agency currently has deposit accounts with the lender.

The lender’s latest announcement comes one month after it laid off a third of its staffers in March and 900 employees in December in a disastrous Zoom call.

In conversation with Patti Cook, CEO of Finance of America Companies

Wells Fargo won an early round in a lawsuit accusing the bank of running a predatory mortgage lending scheme in the Atlanta area before the 2008 financial crisis and continuing to discriminate against minorities for more than a decade afterward.

The permanent staff reductions appear to be concentrated in originations, where pretax income has been lower and outpaced by earnings generated by the servicing division, in line with broader industry trends.

Lawmakers also asked officials to include more perspectives from Veterans Affairs and USDA representatives and increase focus on manufactured home valuations.

The actions involved are based on findings by an interagency task force first convened last year by Marcia Fudge, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The class action complaint comes after U.S. senators called on regulators to investigate the bank’s alleged treatment of minority homeowners.

An audit found that mostly wealthy, white homeowners in urban counties were benefiting from the century-old policy.

This follows the publication last week of an investigation that found that the bank had in 2020 approved only 47% of applications to refinance mortgages completed by Black homeowners compared with 72% of those from White applicants.

Join Maggie Kimberl, President of the Bourbon Women Association for a peek behind the scenes of the bourbon industry. Learn more about the women that are rising in the male-dominated spirits sector, the proper bourbon tasting technique and a little bit of the history of bourbon.

A “small number” of the more than 3,000 workers were affected by the snafu, the company said.