FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 22, 2026
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, Jarice Thompson, jarice@ourfinancialsecurity.org
Organized Power In Numbers, Adolfo Flores, aflores@onpoint.pro
“Dreams Denied” in North Carolina: New Study Finds Troubling Pattern of Racial Disparities in Wells Fargo’s Mortgage Lending
CHARLOTTE, NC – Wells Fargo’s mortgage lending patterns demonstrate significant racial disparities in Charlotte and across North Carolina, according to a new report released by Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, North Carolina United Power for Action/NC Industrial Areas Foundation, Organized Power in Numbers, and UNITE HERE North Carolina. The study analyzed nearly 25,000 North Carolina mortgage applications and over 16,000 mortgage loans at Wells Fargo between 2020 and 2024 and found racial disparities across several key metrics.
Key Takeaways
- Substantial racial disparities in mortgage denial rates: Wells Fargo denied Black, Latino, and Asian mortgage applicants about twice as frequently as white applicants. Wells Fargo rejected 22.5% of Black applicants, 25.6% of Latino applicants and 20.3% of Asian applicants, compared with 10.3% of white applicants between 2020 and 2024. These racial disparities persisted even when controlling for income.
- Wells Fargo mortgage denial rates for Black and Latino applicants increased between 2020 and 2024. Wells Fargo’s denial rates rose about 20% for Black and Latino applicants between 2020 and 2024, rising from 21.2% to 25.6% for Black applicants and from 25.0% to 29.8% for Latino applicants. Over the same period, denial rates for White applicants increased by only 11%.
- Wells Fargo underrepresents Black and Latino applicants and borrowers in Charlotte: Black adults make up 22.9% of the population of the metropolitan area of Charlotte—North Carolina’s biggest city—but they composed less than one-tenth of Wells Fargo’s applicants and loan originations in the area (8.2% and 7.1%, respectively). Latino adults make up 11.0% of the Charlotte population but represented only 7.4% of Wells Fargo’s applicants and 6.6% of its loan originations.
- Wells Fargo underrepresents communities of color: Wells Fargo took fewer applications and made fewer loans in census tracts where people of color made up a majority of the population. People of color comprise the majority of the population in 27.3% of North Carolina census tracts, but Wells Fargo took only 15.4% of its mortgage applications and made only 14.3% of its loans in these areas.
North Carolina is facing a significant housing affordability crisis. Roughly two-thirds of residents can’t afford to buy a home and home prices have risen steeply across the state. Wells Fargo is the largest bank mortgage lender in the state, but its mortgage applications and loans have fallen by over 70 percent between 2020 and 2024. Some of the decline is undoubtedly tied to the rising interest rate environment, but Wells Fargo’s decline is far greater than the 41 percent decline in applications at peer banks.
Wells Fargo’s home purchase mortgage lending in North Carolina has exhibited a pattern of racial disparities in the people it serves, the neighborhoods where it provides credit, the applicants it rejects and the prices it offers. These racial disparities reinforce long-standing barriers to mortgage credit for people of color and the communities where they live. These barriers, in turn, contribute to the yawning racial wealth gaps that make it harder for Black, Latino and Asian people to invest in their families, pursue educational opportunities or start small businesses.
Read the full report here
“Wells Fargo’s pattern of under-serving people and communities of color and its high rejection rates of Black and Latine mortgage applicants is especially troubling as the administration rolls back civil rights and fair lending enforcement,” said Ericka Taylor, Co-Executive Director of Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund. “And the bank’s record of racial disparities in its home purchase lending not only undermines people’s ability to build wealth and invest in their families’ futures, but it also perpetuates the yawning racial wealth gap that is an injustice for these families and for all of us.”
“Housing is not a privilege for some—it’s a basic need. When race decides who gets access, it goes against our deepest moral beliefs,” said Bishop Herbert Reynolds Davis, PhD, Chairman of the Board of Directors of NC United Power for Action. “Our faith teaches that every person carries God’s image. Racism in housing denies that truth and is morally wrong.”
“As a member and leader of our union in North Carolina, I am disappointed and outraged by the data this report is bringing to light. We are a union of primarily black and brown members, and many of my fellow members live in the crescent area of Charlotte where, as the report shows, our communities have been underserved for generations,” said Stacey Hannah from UNITE HERE North Carolina. “We are proud to stand in solidarity with faith institutions, community organizations, other unions, and the broader working class majority to take this info public.”
“Wells Fargo is one of the most popular banks that Latinos and immigrants bank with. They run massive marketing campaigns to target our communities,” said Neidi Dominguez, founding Executive Director of Organized Power In Numbers. “They happily take our deposits and rather than investing back in our communities, they weaponize our own money against us. Wells Fargo has invested in private detention centers and discriminates against Latino credit seekers in North Carolina and across the country.”
“Today’s report underscores just how far away Wells Fargo is from cleaning up its long history of customer abuses. Regulators must immediately investigate this disturbing new evidence of racial disparities in Wells Fargo’s mortgage lending,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren. “The Trump Administration should be strictly enforcing our fair lending and consumer protection laws so everyone has a fair shot at buying a home or starting a small business – instead of rolling back safeguards that protect borrowers from discrimination.”
“Wells Fargo has had a long track record of repeatedly violating laws and harming consumers, including discriminating against home loan borrowers, charging erroneous mortgage fees, making borrowers pay for unnecessary auto insurance, abusing servicemembers by unlawfully repossessing their vehicles, and opening millions of fake accounts. Under my leadership, the House Financial Services Committee investigated Wells Fargo, leading to multiple CEOs and Board members resigning in disgrace, and the Federal Reserve imposing an unprecedented asset cap on the bank. Some thought that the bank entered a new era and put its history of defrauding customers in the past when consent orders were resolved and the asset cap was lifted,” said Representative Maxine Waters, Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee. “However, in this new report, there is evidence that Wells Fargo’s deep-rooted problems did not simply disappear. These new findings show that far more accountability is needed and that lifting the asset cap was premature. These findings should be investigated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Reserve, and the Department of Justice, but unfortunately, the Trump administration is weakening oversight and rolling back the very protections that are supposed to stop discrimination and abuse of consumers. Turning a blind eye to this kind of consumer harm will only put working families and communities already too often shut out of opportunity during Trump’s affordability crisis at even greater risk. Consumers need banks that follow the law and provide fair access to credit; that’s the America that we’re fighting for.”
“As a Latina woman who works at Wells Fargo, this report is personal. These are my people being denied the opportunity to own a home, to build generational wealth, to leave a legacy to their families— and at two to three times the rate of their white counterparts with the same income, that doesn’t feel like an accident. That feels like redlining,” said Danielle Olivas, a Wells Fargo teller from a unionized branch in Artesia, New Mexico that is currently in bargaining for their first union contract. “Workers see what is going on. We sit with these families, we know their stories because we live it. We know what this bank is capable of, and we know when something isn’t right. But without a union, we have no protected way to speak up about it. That is why workers across the country are fighting to unionize — not just for ourselves, but for our communities. My people deserve better and so do we.”
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