Report: Major Banks Restricted Services for Conservatives During Biden Admin

Report: Major Banks Restricted Services for Conservatives During Biden Admin

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) Debanking Review found that major banks closed accounts belonging to conservatives, religious groups, and others the Biden administration did not favor.

Guess what organization popped up quite a few times? Southern Poverty Law Center.

More on that later.

The OCC performed the review after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to determine if any of the banks’ “policies or practices may have required, encouraged, or otherwise influenced banks to deny or limit access to financial services to Americans because of their political or religious beliefs or lawful business activities.”

JPMorgan Chase Bank, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo Bank, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank, and BMO Bank all had policies between 2020 and September 2025:

In the report, the OCC found that broad reputation risk policies—which lacked clear standards and objective, risk-based criteria—disadvantaged certain Americans based on their political, religious, or social views or based on their lawful business activities. The OCC also found that banks maintained public and nonpublic policies restricting certain industry sectors’ access to financial services, including those in oil and gas exploration, coal mining or coal-powered plants, firearms or ammunition manufacturing or distribution, construction or operation of detention facilities, the manufacturing, distribution or online retail of tobacco or e-cigarettes, and digital asset activities.

In preparing the report, the OCC reviewed nearly 100,000 complaints to OCC-regulated institutions and received approximately 50,000 documents consisting of approximately 420,000 pages from these banks regarding their policies, procedures, practices, and individual customer decisions.

“Today’s report provides irrefutable evidence that the nation’s largest banks have denied, debanked and discriminated against customers and lawful businesses,” said Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan V. Gould. “Americans should have access to financial services regardless of their beliefs, affiliations, or political views. Fair access to financial services is not a mantra—it is a mandate. The Trump Administration is committed to ending the weaponization of finance against hardworking Americans, once and for all.”

A few examples:

• In February 2021, a payment processor owned by one bank closed the account of a merchant that sold merchandise promoting President Trump and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) brand.
• In February 2023, one bank declined to provide financial services to a public education organization due to its partisan leanings—namely, the organization’s political arm’s endorsement of solely Democratic candidates.
• One bank implemented an environmental and social risk management policy that restricted it from entering into a business relationship with customers that did not have policies that aligned with the bank’s responsible firearm standards. This included, for example, limitations on the sale of high-capacity magazines and restrictions on firearm sales to individuals under the age of 21.

Why? Because the banks viewed those customers as “reputation risks.” Yes, the banks thought associating with those customers could lead to protests or lead to negative media.

Staff didn’t use facts to determine who fell into that category. It’s all about feels:

The agencies observed that supervisory staff have little ability to predict whether or how certain activities or customer relationships present reputation risks that could threaten the safety and soundness of an institution. Instead, by focusing on reputation risk, supervisors attempt to understand and anticipate public opinion regarding issues and events and then attempt to directly connect this public opinion regarding issues and events to an institution’s condition in ways that have proven nearly impossible to assess or quantify with accuracy.

The OCC found that the banks appear no better than bank regulators at meaningfully and fairly evaluating reputation risk. Despite efforts to establish policies and corresponding processes that objectively measured reputation risk, the banks acknowledged the highly subjective nature of a reputation risk assessment. As one bank policy provided: “Because of the perception-based nature of Reputational Risk, it is difficult to define all situations that should be escalated” for oversight. Another bank observed that “[j]udgment of what poses sufficient reputation risk to warrant further review is dependent on the facts of each situation and therefore, there can be no definitive checklist.” A third bank explained that “[d]ue to the occurrence and circumstance of Reputational Risk being heavily dependent on diverse stakeholder judgment, the establishment of a robust Risk Culture is critical in moderating potential Reputational Risk.”

The banks even used non-traditional sources to determine a customer’s reputation risk.

Non-traditional sources such as the Southern Poverty Law Center. You know, the organization that paid the KKK and other racist groups. One SPLC higher-up even had a love affair with a member and laundered money.

Yes, banks relied on the SPLC to assess reputational risk.

PNC didn’t issue a line of credit to a media company in 2021. The OCC didn’t name the company, but bank employees raised concerns because of a speech the owner, described only as a “conservative political commenter,” once gave.

The employees also noted that the media company owner’s foundation helped fund “several Christian conservative groups, including several identified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

JPMorgan subsidiary WePay, which provides payment services directly to customers or through a third-party online platform, canceled many accounts belonging to political or religious merchants.

WePay monitored for compliance using a tool that screened profiles, websites, and other information for terms to identify merchants engaging in unlawful activities. These terms included MAGA, Make America Great, and America First.

Yeah, um, the terms “included the names of certain ‘hate groups’ identified by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center for their perceived non-mainstream social or religious views.”

WePay closed an account belonging to a conservative legal advocacy organization because it was supposedly associated with a known hate group. WePay only knew about the “hate group” because SPLC identified it as one.

“Notwithstanding certain efforts by the largest banks to rein in these practices, I am not confident that they will be enough,” Comptroller Gould said. “Accordingly, the OCC will be assessing further changes to the regulatory and supervisory framework applicable to the largest banks to reduce the likelihood of these harmful practices recurring in the future.”

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