In December 2011, four to seven years after the subprime lending occurred, Bank of America agreed to a $335 million settlement for its discriminatory practices against African Americans and Hispanics, the largest settlement ever over residential fair lending practices. Wells Fargo and other lenders have been similarly accused of discriminatory practices; Wells, the country’s largest home mortgage lender, paid the Fed $85 million to settle charges that it had brought. In short, discrimination in lending was not limited to isolated instances, but was a pervasive practice.
