First National Bank of Pennsylvania was sued on Monday by the U.S. Department of Justice and the state of North Carolina, which accused it of lending discrimination known as redlining in the Charlotte and Winston-Salem, North Carolina markets, Reuters reported. According to a federal complaint, FNB violated the federal Fair Housing Act and Equal Credit Opportunity Act by avoiding home loans and other mortgage services between 2017 and 2021 in majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. The Pittsburgh-based bank's redlining allegedly included locating and maintaining nearly all branch locations and mortgage loan officers outside these neighborhoods, and relying on majority-white areas for referrals and loan applications. Though Charlotte and Winston-Salem had a respective 32% and 22% of census tracts in majority-Black and Hispanic areas, FNB devoted just one of 18 branches in each region to those tracts — and closed the Winston-Salem branch in 2021, the complaint said. The lawsuit seeks restitution to victims, a civil fine, an injunction against further redlining and other remedies.
