The U. S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development has launched an investigation into Wells Fargo's mortgage programs designed to increase Black homeownership.
The probe, opened on October 7, 2026, will determine whether the bank's race-based lending policies breached the Fair Housing Act.
HUD's Office of Special Investigations is reviewing Wells Fargo's 2017 and 2022 commitments, including mortgage financing and refinancing assistance aimed at closing racial gaps in homeownership.
The agency is examining whether the bank offered different mortgage products or terms based on race or national origin.
If violations are found, HUD or the Department of Justice could pursue enforcement actions.
HUD Officials Criticize Race-Based Lending
HUD Secretary Scott Turner condemned the practice, stating, "Even if Wells Fargo did not violate the law, its practice of dividing Americans based on race is immoral, unethical and un-American."
He added that employees involved in race-based decision-making "should be ashamed of themselves."
Craig Trainor, HUD's assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity, said the review is based partly on Wells Fargo's public commitments and disclosures about its mortgage initiatives.
Trainor questioned whether the bank continued tailoring lending decisions by race after removing explicit diversity, equity and inclusion language from its website in 2025.
"The Fair Housing Act forbids racial discrimination in housing.
It does not say: discriminate, so long as the discrimination is called a 'special purpose credit program' and justified as advancing 'racial equity in homeownership,'" Trainor said.
Wells Fargo committed in February 2017 to lend $60 billion to qualified African American consumers for home purchases by 2027.
In 2022, the bank announced $210 million for racial equity in homeownership and $150 million to reduce mortgage rates and refinancing costs.
By late 2023, it had fulfilled about 40% of the $60 billion commitment and refinanced about 5,100 customers, saving them an average of roughly $100 per month.
Wells Fargo said in 2022 that these efforts "are an important next step and will help close the homeownership gap between white and minority families created by decades of systemic inequities."
The programs followed scrutiny of Wells Fargo's treatment of minority borrowers.
Yahoo reported that Bloomberg found the bank approved fewer than half of Black refinancing applicants in 2020.
Wells Fargo also reached a Justice Department settlement in 2012 over allegations that it charged Black and Hispanic borrowers higher rates and fees than similarly qualified white borrowers and steered some qualified minority borrowers toward subprime loans.
In 2025, Wells Fargo removed explicit DEI language from its website, while public records and archived reports continued to draw HUD's attention.
The bank announced in early 2023 that it would exit the correspondent mortgage channel and reduce its servicing portfolio as part of a broader retreat from mortgage lending.
From January through June 2026, Wells Fargo ranked as the nation's 15th-largest mortgage lender with $15.3 billion in volume, nearly 30% above the same period a year earlier, according to Inside Mortgage Finance.
During the same period, its owned servicing portfolio totaled $603 billion, making it the sixth-largest in the nation.
HUD has ordered Wells Fargo to preserve existing and future records related to its mortgage policies and programs, including emails, text messages and electronic communications from personal devices and accounts.
