This report investigates the current state of discriminatory lending practices by financial institutions that operates in the Twin-Cities metropolitan statistical area (MSA) using publicly available loan application data from 2008 through 2013.

Discrimination may be pithily described as the “unequal treatment of equals". More accurately, it represents a situation wherein individuals are treated and judged—for better or for worse—in terms of their membership of a group rather than in terms of their individual personal qualities....