By Dan Ennis, Published in Banking Dive
Click here to read the entire article.
The agency stopped short of detailing specific instances but pointed to policy statements from 2020 through 2022 in a preliminary report issued Wednesday.
Nine banks supervised by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency “made inappropriate distinctions among customers” because they kept policies that restricted banking services to clients with ties to certain industries, the agency said in a preliminary report Wednesday.
The report stopped short of detailing specific instances when particular banks held named customers at arm’s length over specific policies. It did, however, cite the banks’ environmental, social and governance policies or corporate responsibility and policy statements from 2020 to 2022 as source material.
The banks are JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citi, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, PNC, Capital One, TD and BMO.
The OCC expressed concern that, between 2020 and 2025, the banks restricted access or required “escalated reviews and approvals before providing … access” to certain customers with connections to oil and gas, coal, firearms, private prisons, tobacco, payday lending, adult entertainment, digital assets or political action committees and political parties.
It’s that last part that, presumably, spurred President Donald Trump in January to accuse Bank of America – while its CEO was on stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland – of debanking conservatives.