Wells Fargo has a history of targeting vulnerable communities for risky financial products. At the height of the subprime lending mania in 2006, the bank was more likely to loan subprime mortgages to Latinos and African-Americans than whites, according to a September 2009 report by the Center for American Progress, a process known as “reverse red-lining.” For financially stable borrowers, the targeting was even starker: Middle-class blacks were four times more likely than middle-class whites to get a dangerous mortgage. Middle-class Latinos were nearly three times more likely.
This allegedly illegal, race-based lending led the city of Baltimore to file suit against Wells Fargo in 2009, claiming it had robbed the city of tax revenue by mounting a systematic campaign to push risky mortgages on African-Americans through the targeting of black churches and neighborhoods. The suit was dismissed and reintroduced many times as lawyers from both sides battled, and is still unresolved.