The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the federal supervisor of national banks in the US, has concluded that each of the nine largest lenders under its oversight operated policies that restricted access to financial services on political, religious or sector-specific grounds between 2020 and September 2025.

The review covered JPMorgan Chase Bank, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo Bank, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank and BMO Bank. The regulator carried out the work under the President’s Executive Order, “Guaranteeing Fair Access to Banking for All Americans”.

Its aim was to establish whether internal rules or practices at these institutions had pushed staff to refuse or curtail services to customers because of their beliefs or legally permitted commercial activities.

According to the findings, sweeping reputation risk frameworks without defined standards or objective, risk-based tests put some Americans at a disadvantage because of their political, religious or social views, or because of the lawful businesses they ran. The OCC also identified both published and internal policies that limited banking access for whole industries.

These included oil and gas exploration, coal mining and coal-fired power generation, firearms and ammunition production or distribution, the building or running of detention facilities, tobacco and e-cigarette manufacturing, distribution or online sales, and digital asset activities.

To build its case, the regulator examined close to 100,000 complaints submitted to institutions it oversees. It also obtained roughly 50,000 documents from the nine banks, totalling around 420,000 pages, covering their policies, procedures, practices and decisions on individual customers.

Source link