{"id":251185,"date":"2023-11-09T12:28:22","date_gmt":"2023-11-09T12:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/2023\/11\/09\/251185\/"},"modified":"2023-11-09T12:28:22","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T12:28:22","slug":"citi-ordered-by-cfpb-to-pay-25-9-million-in-fines-for-discrimination-against-american-armenians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/2023\/11\/09\/251185\/","title":{"rendered":"Citi ordered by CFPB to pay $25.9 million in fines for discrimination against American Armenians"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

YEREVAN, November 9. \/ARKA\/.<\/strong> Citibank illegally discriminated against Armenian Americans for years by singling them out on credit card applications based on their surnames, a federal regulator alleged on Wednesday, according to news reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) found that from at least 2015 through 2021, Citi targeted retail services credit card applicants whom employees associated with Armenian national origin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCiti treated Armenian Americans as criminals who were likely to commit fraud,\u201d the CFPB alleged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Citi applied more stringent criteria to suspected Armenian Americans\u2019 applications, including \u201cdenying them outright,\u201d placing blocks on the accounts and requiring additional information, according to the regulator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CFPB said Citi targeted applicants with last names ending in \u201c-ian\u201d and \u201c-yan\u201d as well as applicants in and around Glendale, California, which is home to a large Armenian American population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regulators painted the picture of an orchestrated effort by Citi to conceal the alleged discrimination, including by allegedly falsifying documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Citi is a major issuer of store credit cards, including retail cards for Home Depot, Best Buy and other chains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To punish Citi for the alleged discrimination, the CFPB ordered the bank to pay $25.9 million in fines and consumer redress. Of the total, $1.4 million will go to the victims of Citigroup\u2019s discriminatory practices, the regulator said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cRegrettably, in trying to thwart a well-documented Armenian fraud ring operating in certain parts of California, a few employees took impermissible actions,\u201d Citi spokesperson Karen Kearns said in a statement<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile we prioritize protecting our bank and our customers from fraud, it is unacceptable to base credit decisions on national origin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Citi spokesperson added that after an internal investigation, the bank took \u201cappropriate actions\u201d against those involved and imposed steps to prevent this from happening again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201dWe sincerely apologize to any applicant who was evaluated unfairly by the small number of employees who circumvented our fraud detection protocols,\u201d the Citi spokesperson said. -0-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Citibank illegally discriminated against Armenian Americans for years by singling them out on credit card applications based on their surnames, a federal regulator alleged on Wednesday, according to news reports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":175102,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","tstyn_error":""},"categories":[9214,9216],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-251185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-banks-en-en","8":"category-news"},"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/armbanks.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}