Netflix’s $100 million plan to boost black lendersWe have the first look at a new move to help bridge the racial economic divide in America: Netflix will shift some of its $5 billion in cash to financial institutions that focus on black communities. It will start with $35 million, split two ways: financing a new fund, the Black Economic Development Initiative, that will invest in black financial institutions; and banking with the Hope Credit Union. • The billionaire investor Robert F. Smith proposed that big companies donate 2 percent of their annual profits to black-owned businesses, but this was developed before he aired that idea. Also, this move addresses racial inequality not through charity, but via a routine commercial aspect of Netflix’s business. As the company’s cash pile grows, so might its deposits at banks like Hope.

Source: New York Times June 30, 2020 10:57 UTC