BofA’s Countrywide to Pay $335 Million to Settle Bias Case
As the financial crisis was building in 2008, Bank of America bought Countrywide, which specialized in so-called subprime mortgages, focusing on loans to those with lower credit ratings and charging them higher interest rates.
The settlement covers conduct between 2004 and 2008 before the acquisition by Bank of America, and involves a range of alleged wrongdoing including charging African-Americans and Hispanics higher interest rates and fees and steering some to more expensive subprime mortgages.
(Reporting By Jeremy Pelofsky and James Vicini; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)