Yellen: We Are Looking at ‘Predatory’ Lenders Servicing Black, Latino Communities

[rush transcript]

WATERS: “What can you do about Honda, what can you do about the banks and the predatory practices that continue to gouge, you know, Latinos and African-Americans, that target these products to our communities, what do you say about all of this?”

YELLEN: “So let me start by saying that the practices you described and the trend toward rising inequality, the impact it has on African-Americans and disadvantaged groups is something that greatly concerns me and I think is of tremendous concern to all Americans. in terms of what's we can do when it comes to lending, we are responsible for supervision of financial institutions, to make sure that they adhere to fair lending practices and we test regularly in our consumer compliance exams to make sure that the firms that we supervise are abiding by Congresses rules pertaining to Equal Credit Opportunity Act to make sure that they are not unfair credit practices that are being directed toward minorities or toward any Americans. That is an important goal, we of course work to make sure the banks we supervise meet their COR responsibilities, which I think has been a benefit to low and moderate income communities and more broadly in terms of our monetary policy responsibilities, maximum employment along with price stability are the two major goals that Congress has assigned to us. The downturn that we experienced after the financial crisis, when unemployment rose to over 10 percent, was particularly punishing to African-Americans and to lower skilled workers, more broadly, and strong economy getting the economy recovering, trying to get it back to maximum employment, lowering the unemployment rate, traditionally, African-Americans and other minorities have had higher unemployment rates. We does not -- we do not have the tools to be able to address the structure of unemployment, but across groups but --  strong economy generally I think, really does tend to be beneficial to all Americans. That is what we are working toward. There are other policies that I think Congress could consider that would address these issues.”