6 Ways To Hold Banks Accountable For Debanking Conservative Customers

A few days ago, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a report confirming that the nine largest banks in the country engaged in debanking thousands of people based on their political or religious beliefs. This is at best outrageous, and at worst, illegal — and clearly it needs to be addressed quickly and firmly.

For about a five-year period, these large banks engaged in debanking (closing customers’ account and preventing them from access to bank services) for “other than business reasons.” These individuals and entities just so happened to be Christian, conservative, or both.

The debanking created incredible disruption and difficulty for the victims. Imagine waking up one day and finding out that all of your checking and savings accounts were frozen for “hate, violence, racial intolerance … or items or activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others regarding the same” and having absolutely no idea why it happened. It would be devastating, which was the intention.

This is especially triggering for those of us old enough to remember the shenanigans of the Lois Lerner Internal Revenue Service during the Obama administration. A single example of such a bad actor can be enough to destroy faith in government institutions for a generation.