It was precisely racism. Requiring the banks to make loans to racial quotas is Racism.
The word has come to mean something entirely divorced from its definition, however, so it's useful to point out that efforts to combat racism or "anti-racism" are at fault, here.
To do otherwise is to blunder into a trap waiting to be sprung by knee-jerk leftist reactionaries. Pity we're reduced to co-opting and subverting the silly word games they play, but it's come to that and worse.