Wells Fargo agrees to pay $175 million to settle loan discrimination case

The San Francisco-based bank has offered to pony up $175 million to settle a Justice Department case against it for discriminatory mortgage loan practices that short-changed people of color and immigrants.

The settlement still needs a judge's approval. The offer comes on the heels of Bank of America’s Countrywide Financial unit agreeing to pay a record $335 million to settle similar charges in December, AP says. An excerpt:

The government investigation found that loans submitted to Wells Fargo by mortgage brokers had varied interest rates, fees, and costs based only on race and not correlated to the borrowers' creditworthiness, according to the court document.