American Bank of Oklahoma in Collinsville has settled claims by the Justice Department that it failed to meet the mortgage lending needs of minority neighborhoods around Tulsa.
The $383 million-asset bank, which denied the allegations, said in a press release that agreed to resolve the matter “to avoid the cost and distraction of protracted litigation.”
The bank agreed to invest at least $950,000 in a loan subsidy fund for residents of Black and Hispanic neighborhoods around Tulsa. It will also designate $100,000 for advertising, outreach and consumer education and another $100,000 to develop community partnerships designed to boost access to residential mortgages.
The bank plans to expand its current suite of deposit and lending products in the city by adding mortgage purchase and refinance products. The bank also agreed to open a loan-production office in the city and expand its financial education offerings.
“From 2017 through at least 2021, ABOK engaged in a pattern or practice of unlawful redlining,” the Justice Department alleged in its complaint.
American “avoided providing home loans and other mortgage services in majority-Black neighborhoods. The area … redlined includes the historically Black neighborhoods in Tulsa that were the site of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre,” the complaint added.