"Wells Fargo Rejected Half Its Black Applicants in Mortgage Refinancing Boom," 11 Mar. 2022

... Nationwide, only 47% of Black homeowners who completed a refinance application with Wells Fargo in 2020 were approved, compared with 72% of White homeowners, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of federal mortgage data. While Black applicants had lower approval rates than White ones at all major lenders, the data show, Wells Fargo had the biggest disparity and was alone in rejecting more Black homeowners than it accepted.

... Wells Fargo, which declined to comment about individual customers, didn’t dispute Bloomberg’s statistical findings. It says it treats all potential borrowers the same, is more selective than other lenders, and an internal review of the bank’s 2020 refinancing decisions confirmed that “additional, legitimate, credit-related factors” were responsible for the differences.

... Kristy Fercho, who in August 2020 became the first Black woman to oversee Wells Fargo’s home-lending business and its more than 25,000 employees, says the bank’s processes are race-blind and that its lending decisions were “consistent across racial and ethnic groups.”

... The refinancing gap gets at the ability of Black families to build on the wealth they have. Not being able to refinance a home “means that people have less resources to invest in their children, less resources to start businesses, less resources to renovate their homes, less resources to buy additional homes,” says Andre Perry, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution ... .