United States v. Union Savings Bank and Guardian Savings Bank (S.D. Ohio)

On January 3, 2017, the court entered a consent order in the United States v. Union Savings Bank and Guardian Savings Bank (S.D. Ohio), a case alleging that two related banks engaged in redlining majority-black neighborhoods in the Cincinnati, Dayton, and Columbus, Ohio, as well as the Indianapolis, Indiana metropolitan statistical areas between at least 2010 and 2014 in their residential real estate lending businesses.  The complaint, which was filed on December 28, 2016, alleged that the banks: located their branches to avoid serving majority-black neighborhoods; trained and incentivized their loan officers to focus their activities in predominantly white neighborhoods; failed to effectively market their mortgage products to majority-black neighborhoods; and knew of, but failed to address, the significant disparities in their lending that resulted.  The consent order requires the banks to invest at least $7 million in a loan subsidy fund and open two full-service branches and a loan production office in majority-black census tracts.  In addition, the settlement requires that the banks invest $2 million in advertising, outreach, financial education and community partnership efforts, increase fair lending monitoring and fair lending training for its employees.