[aneemzic]

> This only lasts until someone figures out how they are different and breaks the association right?

Would you be OK if banks started charging you 4% more interest because say you have irish heritage? Your behaviour hasn't changed and nobody can explain why it matters that your father was irish, but the models determined it's statistically significant,

What if at some point 30 years down the line it's determined it wasn't even related to irish heritage. There was just coincidentally long running extreme predatory lending by banks in cities with large irish populations.

Would you still feel there's nothing wrong with it?

[chii]

But you're only looking at this from a single perspective, where every single bank starts charging the same 4% simply because of irish heritage.

What if, one bank started doing it because they used this model. But another bank doesn't, because they don't believe this model?

If you were an irish person, you would just move banks. And if it turns out, indeed, that the first bank was over-charging the 4% (ie., no irish person defaults due to their being irish), then they've lost business for no reason, and the 2nd bank got more business.

However, if it turns out that being irish _does_ indeed cause you to default more, then the bank charging an extra 4% was correct. The 2nd bank, upon finding proof of this, would also start charging an extra 4% (otherwise, they'd be losing out money to the first bank).

So in the end, a bank can only charge the most appropriate interest rate for the market to bear.

[naresh_xai]

The number of loans a bank gives out to such a specific factor might be low enough that it would take 30 years for a bank to have an actual study. That's 1-2 generations of abuse.

Most banks just copy each other.

[bostik]

> a bank can only charge the most appropriate interest rate for the market to bear.

The market can remain irrational longer than you can stay alive.