The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has terminated a consent order that prohibited Citibank from discriminating against its Armenian American customers.
The agency, led by President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, ended the consent order on Thursday, three years earlier than when it was set to expire.
The termination order signed by Vought said the bank had already paid more than $24.5 million in penalties and redress payments required by the agreement, and that it had taken steps to prevent future violations of the law. The order also waived any allegations of non-compliance.
Citibank entered into the consent order in November 2023 after it was accused of applying more stringent criteria or even blocking the accounts of credit card applicants in and around Glendale with surnames ending in “ian” and “yan.”
The bank suspected that those applicants seeking new cards or higher limits would be more likely to commit fraud, with some employees referring to them as “Armenian bad guys” or the “Southern California Armenian Mafia,” according to the consent order.
The agency also also found that the bank took “corrective action” against employees who failed to identify and deny the applications. Employees were ordered not to tell customers the real reasons for their rejections or to discuss it in writing or on recorded lines.
The agency’s findings focused on Citigroup’s retail-services division, which houses the bank’s co-brand credit-card partnerships with such companies as Home Depot and Best Buy.
The bank did not admit or deny the CFPB’s findings and did not respond immediately to a request for comment Friday.
California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff blasted the decision to end the consent agreement.
“Once again, this administration is putting big corporations ahead of the people,’” he said in a statement. “This choice, to take the side of the bank against the wronged in the face of the most plainly discriminatory conduct, will cast a long shadow over the community.”
A representative of the CFPB did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Glendale is home to about 15% of the Armenian American population in the U.S, with Los Angeles County having a population of about 250,000 of the ethnic group.
The settlement prompted litigation against the bank by hundreds of customers, some of whom said they not only had their credit card applications rejected but even had accounts closed after years with Citibank.
“Although this does not affect our pursuit of Citibank for its discrimination against Armenian Americans in our community, this is still a slap in the face to the Armenian Americans in Los Angeles County, many of whom support our president,” said Glendale attorney Tamar Armanak, whose firm filed a number of the ongoing lawsuits.
The post Trump administration terminates Citibank consent order prohibiting Armenian American discrimination appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
