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| Photo Credit: AP. |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen plan to use this year’s Freedman’s Bank Forum to highlight how federal coronavirus pandemic relief program funds have helped support Black- and minority-owned businesses.
The Treasury
Department said in a statement that “the importance of expanding the community
finance system will be front and center” at the Oct. 6 forum. In 2015,
then-Treasury Secretary Jack Lew launched the annual Freedman’s conference to
develop strategies to address persistent racial economic disparities.
Roughly 96%
of Black-owned businesses are sole proprietorships and single-employee
companies. These businesses have the hardest time finding funding and are often
the first to suffer during economic downturns. They often turn to financial
institutions for the underserved and other non-traditional lenders for
micro-loans and grants.
Earlier this
month, Treasury announced that it had disbursed roughly $8.28 billion in relief
funds to 162 community financial institutions across the country through its
Emergency Capital Investment Program.
The forum
will include a panel on new support for community finance institutions, small
businesses and low wealth communities, “all in an effort to unlock the economic
potential of communities of color, rural areas, and others that have
experienced limits on economic opportunity,” the department said.
A February
Government Accountability Office report outlined how various agencies could
improve efforts to increase banking access for people who don’t have access to
bank accounts.
The Federal
Deposit Insurance Corp., the National Credit Union Administration and the
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency were all identified for improvements.
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AP’s coverage of the Treasury Department at
https://apnews.com/hub/us-department-of-the-treasury.