OneUnited's Teri Williams: Racism Still Rampant in Finance

Fusion
Thursday, July 28, 2016

Teri Williams, President of OneUnited Bank discussed the financial system's structural racism in a recent interview. “If you look at what has happened in the banking industry or financial services industry over the past 10 years, the black community was faced with predatory lending, we currently have payday lenders that charge rates as high as 400% on a short term loan, they charge fees to cash checks of 1% or more, and the legal framework, the regulatory framework allows this to exist… Black people spend $1.2 trillion annually. That is more than some whole countries spend. But only 2% of that is spent in the black community, so the opportunity for us to use that spending to build wealth in our community is very small.”