The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released preliminary findings of debanking activities at 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.
They were clearly debanking people whose beliefs they opposed for whatever reasons.
This OCC review is intended to align practice with the president’s executive order, Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans.
“The goal was to determine if these banks were debunking or discriminating based on political, religious, or lawful business activities.”
The OCC’s preliminary findings show that, between 2020 and 2023, these nine banks made inappropriate distinctions among customers before they’d let them use their financial services. They restricted access to banking services or required escalated reviews and approvals before providing services to certain customers they had picked out illicitly.
Sectors subjected to restricted access included oil and gas exploration, coal mining, firearms, private prisons, tobacco and e-cigarette manufacturers, adult entertainment, and digital assets.
From the report:
Most banks restricted access to financing for:
- oil and gas, exploration, development, or production in the Arctic.
- financing existing coal mining or plant operations.
- financing private prisons
- tobacco or e-cigarette manufacturers, distributors, and online retailers,
- digital asset activities.
Several banks restricted financing to:
- firearms manufacturers or retailers, and adult entertainment.
- funding for consumer debt collection and repossession agencies.
- to political action committees of parties they didn’t like.
This went on from 2020 to 2023. Banks were often worried about negative media attention. Most of the debanking aligned with the far-left political agenda of the Obama and Biden administrations.
Masters of Gaslighting
Even while it was obvious they were debanking, and even admitting to debanking, they said they weren’t debanking.
Comptroller Gould stated, “It is unfortunate that the nation’s largest banks thought these harmful debanking policies were an appropriate use of their government-granted charter and market power. While many of these policies were undertaken in plain sight and even announced publicly, certain banks have continued to insist that they did not engage in debanking. Going forward, the OCC will hold banks accountable for these actions and ensure unlawful debanking does not continue.”
“…the OCC will hold banks accountable for these actions…”
Which means nothing will happen.
Those banks were doing what Democrats had asked them to do, they are thus protected by the Democrat crime syndicate and will suffer no consequences.