PBS Newshour: on Corporations

Deval Patrick: Focused on fair lending practices in Clinton Admin

A: I think we have made a tremendous amount of progress in the area of fair lending. We have had a number of very carefully targeted cases, all but one of which have resulted in agreed resolutions.

Q: And what were the problems you’re addressing with those cases?

A: There were a couple of different kinds. One was underwriting discrimination, that is, differences in judgments among comparably qualified individuals that seemed to be based entirely on race or ethnic background, in some cases on age or gender differences. In other cases we saw people with comparable credit backgrounds and credit histories being charged dramatically different rates for the same lending product. The lending industry itself attributes to the attention that this administration has given these issues a record level of lending to African-American and Hispanic-American borrowers. I think that has been terrific.