President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order earlier this year on “politicized or unlawful debanking” and so-called “reputational risk” assessments that financial institutions used in denying services because of a customer’s political or religious beliefs or lawful business activities that the service provider disagreed with or disfavored for political reasons.
The Order, Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans, establishes, as formal government policy, the principle that “no American should be denied access to financial services because of their constitutionally or statutorily protected beliefs, affiliations, or political views,” and seeks to ensure that politicized or unlawful debanking is not used “to inhibit such beliefs, affiliations, or political views. Banking decisions must instead be made on the basis of individualized, objective, and risk-based analyses.”
The Order specifically refers to “Operation Choke Point,” an initiative implemented under President Barack Obama in which the Justice Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) weaponized “reputational risk” as a means of “choking out” certain disfavored but legitimate businesses, like licensed firearm and ammunition dealers, from access to essential financial services. Choke Point relied on federal regulators to coerce banks into cutting off access to credit and bank services for businesses arbitrarily classified as “high risk,” even those being operated without any evidence of fraud and in complete compliance with the law. (In a telling illustration of the initiative’s true nature, at the same time that the Obama administration was “pressuring banks to terminate relationships with legal industries, it [was] providing formal guidance to banks on how to provide financial services to the marijuana industry.”)
By 2014, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform concluded that the Justice Department lacked “adequate legal authority for the initiative;” by 2017, the DOJ confirmed that “[a]ll of the Department’s bank investigations conducted as part of Operation Choke Point are now over, the initiative is no longer in effect, and it will not be undertaken again.” During the first Trump administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) had finalized a “fair access” rule requiring banks to use quantitative, impartial, risk-based standards to assess individual customers rather than terminate services to entire categories of customers. That rule was “put on hold” under the Biden administration and, according to an official with a nonprofit organization that advocates against debanking, debanking was not only revived but “‘turbocharged’ under Biden’s watch.”
On October 7, the OCC and FDIC issued a notice of proposed rulemaking to codify the elimination of “reputation risk” from their supervisory programs and “prohibit agencies from requiring, instructing, or encouraging an institution to close an account, to refrain from providing an account, product, or service, or to modify or terminate any product or service on the basis of a person’s or entity’s political, social, cultural, or religious views or beliefs, constitutionally protected speech, or solely on the basis of politically disfavored but lawful business activities perceived to present reputation risk.” (Public comment on the proposed rulemaking closes on December 29, 2025; further information is available here.)
The OCC has also undertaken a review of the nine largest national banks it supervises (JPMorgan Chase Bank, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo Bank, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank, and BMO Bank) to determine whether they “debanked or discriminated against any customers or potential customers on the basis of their political or religious beliefs or lawful business activities.” The nine affected industry sectors include, besides firearm and firearm-related businesses, fossil fuel production and development (coal, oil, gas), tobacco and e-cigarettes, political action committees and political parties, “digital asset” activities, and others.
The OCC published its preliminary findings on December 10. It found that, between 2020 and 2023, each of these banks had debanking policies and practices in place and “made inappropriate distinctions among customers in the provision of financial services on the basis of their lawful business activities by maintaining policies restricting access to banking services or requiring escalated reviews and approvals before providing certain customers access to financial services.” One bank targeted certain industry sectors as being “[s]ectors with heightened media, activist, or political scrutiny, and/or with historically negative connotations;” another “imposed restrictions on certain industry sectors because they engaged in ‘activities that, while not illegal, are contrary to [the bank’s] values.’”
Specifically with respect to firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition manufacturing or distribution, the OCC states that several banks:
restricted financing to firearms manufacturers or retailers, including those offering assault- or military-style weapons for civilian use. Others included certain firearms accessories (e.g., bump stocks, high-capacity magazines). At least two banks highlighted “polarizing” or “polarized” public opinion surrounding individual gun ownership rights and gun control as part of the basis for their firearms restrictions. Another bank noted that “an association with certain [f]irearms [m]anufacturers and [r]etailers could result in significant [f]ranchise risk, particularly when those firearms are associated with civilian gun violence.” As a result, it conditioned relationships with these manufacturers and retailers on their adherence to the bank’s view of “best practices” regarding the sale of firearms.
More instances of such improper “debanking” are expected to come to light as the OCC’s supervisory review continues. The agency is still in the process of examining “nearly 100,000 consumer complaints from the OCC’s internal complaint database and from other government and third-party sources” as well as “thousands of documents from 2020 to 2025,” which it will report on in due course. A reckoning is coming, as “[g]oing forward, the OCC will hold banks accountable for these actions and ensure unlawful debanking does not continue.” Your NRA-ILA will keep you informed on this developing story.
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