Diversity and equality

Financial downturns hit lower-wealth communities first and cause them to suffer the longest.

Earlier this year, canvassers visited branches in five California counties to ask about account options. Some 37% of those who spoke Spanish were unable to talk to a banker, compared with 15% of English speakers, according to a report by the Roosevelt Institute.

Community development financial institutions that are led by people of color will receive the capital, which is being distributed through the National Alliance of Latino CDFI Executives and the African American Alliance of CDFI CEOs, according to BofA.

New policies, aided by partnerships with local organizations, are helping credit unions make significant progress on DEI.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who lobbied hard for President Biden to forgive $50,000 in student loan debt per borrower, said his much smaller plan can still address racial and gender wealth inequality and help tame inflation.

Goldman Sachs Group faces a June 5 trial in a long-simmering gender-bias class action alleging the bank discriminated against thousands of women in pay and promotion.

For a government agency that prefers to move gradually, the change at the top has come fast, thanks in large part to increased pressure in the wake of a national reckoning around diversity. But it has also fallen short in some ways.

Younger and more diverse leaders may better represent the local community. But bringing new people into the board room requires persistent and targeted outreach.

BMO Financial is expanding its efforts to recruit "underleveraged" job candidates among families fleeing war and hunger abroad. Refugees offer businesses diverse skills and have lower turnover rates than typical North American workers.

Through unconscious bias assessments, analysis and industry partnerships, financial institutions are working to meet the diverse needs of current and future talent.

For too long, Community Reinvestment Act enforcement has relied on income to serve as a proxy for race. This must stop.

The San Francisco megabank plans to reinstate guidance that drew scrutiny following revelations that women and nonwhite candidates were interviewed for jobs that had been reserved for someone else.

Monetary policy has a more significant impact on spending of U.S. households headed by white women than on those led by white men or Black men and women, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco said.

It is essential to place the central focus on race, to bring nondepository mortgage lenders under the Community Reinvestment Act umbrella and to address bias in home appraisals.

Three Black-owned U.S. banks have bought a piece of a $1.23 billion syndicated corporate loan, a rare move in a market typically dominated by bigger Wall Street and regional lenders.  

First introduced in 2020, the Fair Access to Financial Services Act would require banks to serve all customers in a manner similar to existing requirements for hotels and restaurants under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

HSBC Holdings' U.K. unit is planning to stop collecting data on the gender of its customers across some products as the bank pursues more inclusive services for nonbinary and trans people.

Totem's digital banking app is the first created by and for Native Americans. The challenger bank will help each of its partner tribes offer uniquely branded apps that provide banking services, distribute government assistance and teach users how to build their credit.

Community development financial institutions will receive low-interest loans from Bank of America and use that money to fund the development of primary health care centers in communities of color and rural areas.

Bank and financial services supervisors have an affirmative duty to address the deep economic divide facing minorities in the U.S.