Loans bias payout

Scores of Bajans in the United States are to be compensated for being charged higher mortgage fees and interest rates than what Whites had to pay a few years ago.
The Bajans and other West Indians are among 200 000 homeowners and another 10 000 across the United States who were shunted into the large pool of people of colour who were denied conventional mortgages even though they had qualified for them between 2004 and 2008.
The payouts are the result of a historic agreement reached by the US Justice Department headed by Attorney General Eric Holder and Bank of America to settle a racial discrimination case.
Payouts can range from at least US$600 to thousands of dollars depending on the mortgage arrangements they had agreed to with Countrywide Financial, at the time a major mortgage lender but now a unit of Bank of America, the country’s second largest bank.
Read the full story in today’s DAILY NATION.