Apparently, big banks want Black people to trust them with our money. Trust is earned. And how banking in America is set up; they haven’t earned trust.
They’ve been finessing us for decades.
Our community often uses check cashing centers and Western Union for financial transactions — because there are far fewer banks in Black neighborhoods. While, in theory, we could save around $40,000 in our lifetimes by using banks, they aren’t the most welcoming to us.
There is a long history of lending discrimination. We are more likely to be denied home loans, undervalued when getting home appraisals, have higher interest rates on credit cards and loans or be rejected for bank accounts.
Banks have been trying to lure Black customers back for years disguised as “racial justice” programs. In essence, banks promise money into our communities for our bank accounts — but how is that different from how they usually use us?
Access to credit is one of the defining ways to gain generational wealth. How are we supposed to gain wealth when the institutions that house that credit and other financial access bar us from it or put barriers in the way of access?