(Other experts note that nonimmigrant minority borrowers often face the same disadvantages.)

The data is essential in determining whether minority borrowers pay higher interest rates than white borrowers with similar credit histories and loan amounts.

As a result, it has been difficult for anyone else to determine why minority borrowers are more likely than white ones to borrow at substantially higher interest rates.

Among minority borrowers who made $51,000 to $75,000 a year, 23 percent received subprime loans.

He said that minority borrowers who qualified for prime loans were steered into higher-interest-rate subprime loans.

But the authors said the gaps between subprime lending to whites and minority borrowers were probably too big to reflect only credit differences.

Facing accusations of lending discrimination for several years, Shawmut has instituted a program to reach out to minority borrowers.

Eighty percent of those loans are to minority borrowers, he said.

The Government has gone after other banks suspected of using overages to charge minority borrowers more for loans.

Ms. Bessant said Nationsbank lent $2.7 billion to minority borrowers last year, placing it among the top five lenders to minorities.