US mortgage lenders are now required to make additional disclosures about the pricing of loans in March as part of their filings under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, or HMDA. Now, starting with 2004, filings with regulators will require that lenders to report more data on loans where the interest rate is above the yield on long-term Treasurys by at least three percentage points. The filings break down the information by the race and gender of the applicants and make comparisons along these lines possible.

The new data show that African-Americans have a twice greater chance to end up with an unfavorable subprime mortgage than white borrowers. The lenders point to the smaller incomes of the Afro-Americans as well as their weaker credit histories claiming that the distortion in numbers is attributable to these facts, and not indicative of bias. Citigroup Inc. defends its criteria as "blind to race, ethnicity, gender and any other prohibited factor."

Their critics retort that not enough is being done to educate consumers as to their options, and loan officers in fact are offered financial incentives to push high-cost loans to consumers.

"Some customers who end up in subprime loans could qualify for prime loans," says Kenneth D. Wade, chief executive officer of Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp.

With respect to racial disparities, Afro-Americans often have less experience with home-buying and less willing to undertake a thorough search to shop for better rates.