Attorney General Janet Reno and I have made this a major priority and we continue to increase the resources devoted to this effort. What we seek to ensure through our enforcement program is fair access to credit, and credit that is provided on fair terms and at fair prices. Our lawsuits have targeted practices that created impediments to fair access to credit. Most recently we have turned our attention to the subprime market. Comparable 1993 figures were 8 percent in black neighborhoods and 1 percent in white neighborhoods.
Differences are apparent regardless of income level.
As stark as these figures are, we think that if we were able to isolate predatory lending from the rest of subprime, the differences might be even more alarming. This has contributed to the home ownership gap and the wealth gap, and has also developed the tradition among such borrowers of seeking credit from alternative lenders. Whether their roots are in the inner cities or rural America, many minority and older borrowers may be unfamiliar with banks and banking, may never have had access to an unsecured line of credit, or may not until recently even had a credit card. Many minority and older borrowers have less formal education, thus making all in their groups susceptible to loan officer assumptions that they are gullible. Some minorities who have obtained subprime loans are paying premium prices unnecessarily.