Citigroup Fined $25.9 Million After Federal Regulator Says It Discriminated Against Armenian Americans

Citigroup intentionally discriminated against Armenian Americans when they applied for credit cards, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Wednesday.

The bureau said some bank employees argued internally that Armenian Americans were more likely to commit fraud and referred to applicants as “bad guys” or as affiliated with organized crime.

The CFPB found that Citi employees were trained to avoid approving applications with last names ending in “yan” or “ian” — the most common suffix to Armenian last names — as well applications that originated in Glendale, California, where a significant portion of the country’s Armenian-American population lives.

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