The Justice Department has secured a $9 million settlement with Ameris Bank over allegations that it avoided underwriting mortgages in predominately Black and Latino communities in Jacksonville, Florida, and discouraged people there from getting home loans.
It’s the latest settlement over a practice known as redlining, which the Biden administration has set to combat with a new task force that previously secured the largest settlement of its kind in the department's history.
Between 2016 and 2021, the Atlanta-based Ameris Bank's home lending was focused disproportionately on mostly white areas of Jacksonville while other banks approved loans at three times the rate Ameris did, the government said.
