JPMorgan pledges $ 30 billion for housing and business loans in black and Latin communities – Business Observer
Margarita M. Phillips
2 min read
JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, has pledged to set aside $ 30 billion in affordable housing and small business loans for blacks and Latinxes in a bid to “close the racial wealth gap and fight the systemic racism, ”the company said Thursday.
The multinational investment bank has pledged an additional $ 8 billion in mortgages to 40,000 black and Latino homebuyers. He plans to increase his grant for first-time homebuyers from $ 3,000 to $ 5,000 in underserved communities. And it will set aside $ 8 billion to help 20,000 black and Latin homeowners refinance their mortgages at lower rates.
The company said it would also fund 100,000 additional affordable rental units with $ 14 billion in new loans and equity investments. The pledge includes additional funding of $ 2 billion for the construction and rehabilitation of affordable housing and $ 500 million for affordable housing preservation funds.
Previously, JPMorgan made smaller and more regional commitments to such efforts, including a five-year period, $ 75 million in efforts develop and maintain affordable housing in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The bank also plans to provide $ 2 billion in additional loans to 15,000 small businesses in predominantly black and Latin communities.
“Systemic racism is a tragic part of American history ”, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan said in a statement. “We can do more and better to break down the systems that have propagated racism and widespread economic inequality, especially for blacks and Latinxes.
Of course, $ 30 billion is a drop in the bucket for an institution that manages $ 3.2 trillion in assets and has nearly $ 190 billion in home loans on its balance sheet. Funding commitments are also made less than a year after The New York Times reported on widespread racial discrimination at a branch of JPMorgan in Arizona, prompting the bank to implement in February mandatory diversity training for managers. That same month, a personal banker at JPMorgan filed a class action lawsuit against the company, claiming that black bankers were intentionally placed in low income branches.
And the bank paid $ 55 million in 2017 to settle a federal case alleging that its independent mortgage brokers were charging black and Latin homebuyers higher mortgage rates than their white counterparts.
