TD And BMO Among 9 Banks Accused Of Discriminating Against Conservative Customers, US Regulator Says

Authored by Jennifer Cowan via The Epoch Times,

A U.S. banking regulator’s report has flagged the Bank of Montreal and TD Bank alongside seven other financial institutions accused of restricting financial services to certain American customers because of their conservative political or religious beliefs.

The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has published a report based on its findings during a supervisory review of debanking practices across nine major banks under its jurisdiction, based on 100,000 complaints at institutions it regulates. Debanking is when a bank or financial institution suddenly closes a customer’s bank accounts or refuses to provide financial services.

Joining the two largest Canadian banks on the OCC’s list were JPMorgan Chase & Co. – the world’s largest banking institution – plus Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., U.S. Bancorp, Capital One Financial Corp., and PNC Financial Services Group Inc.

The OCC says its review stemmed from a presidential directive issued by Donald Trump last August which mandated that U.S. citizens cannot be excluded from accessing financial services based on their religious convictions or political viewpoints.

Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould says the banks named in the report “denied, debanked, and discriminated against customers and lawful businesses” between 2020 and 2025.

“Americans should have access to financial services regardless of their beliefs, affiliations, or political views,” Gould said in a press release. “Fair access to financial services is not a mantra – it is a mandate. The Trump Administration is committed to ending the weaponization of finance against hardworking Americans, once and for all.”

TD did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report, while BMO directed The Epoch Times to a previously issued statement from the Bank Policy Institute.

“We support efforts to establish clear and consistent standards that promote access while maintaining sound risk management, including the administration’s recent efforts to prioritize supervisory attention on material financial risk and rather than reputational risk,” the statement said.

“We look forward to continued engagement with the administration and Congress as they consider additional proposals that ensure that political or religious beliefs do not unfairly affect customers’ access to banking services.”

The regulator’s report presents examples from the financial institutions of practices it deemed to be an issue. Here’s a look at some of the complaints.

TD

TD was listed in the report several times, notably for its management of accounts belonging to an organization dedicated to advancing pro-life advocacy and a faith-based health care sharing ministry.

The OCC reported that the bank instituted a policy requiring that loan requests from the pro-life non-profit organization be flagged for review by TD’s reputational risk committee.

The organization’s national director was also identified by the bank as having a “high political and media profile,” the report found.

TD’s line of credit to the faith-based health ministry was determined by the bank to carry a “reputation risk,” if the relationship became public knowledge through media coverage or advocacy groups critical of the group’s operations.

The bank determined that the group’s “moral and religious requirements” to access services conflicted with “TD’s values of diversity and inclusion.”

BMO

The report highlighted BMO’s approach to firearms-related businesses, noting that in 2022 the bank assessed the “reputational risks” of lending to a longstanding customer that manufactured empty firearm magazines and other tactical products.

“The customer was part of a family of companies that had a ‘strong relationship’ with the bank dating back several decades,” the report said.

BMO’s environmental and social risk policy directed account managers to understand their customers’ businesses and work with those whose practices did not meet the bank’s firearms and ammunition guidelines to bring them into compliance before the next credit decision. If existing customers refused to meet the requirements, managers were expected to work toward ending the banking relationship.

A senior risk officer ultimately approved maintaining the relationship but required ongoing monitoring. The bank also established a quarterly threshold requiring tactical products to account for less than 30 percent of the customer’s total sales.

Other Findings

The report listed several examples of payment processor WePay, which is owned by JPMorgan, closing customer accounts because of their political or religious views.

One of these instances occurred in February 2021, when WePay closed the account of a merchant that sold merchandise promoting Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) brand.

It also closed accounts later that year of a merchant that sold “conservative/ republican” t-shirts and hats, as well as that of a customer that it deemed to be a “religious conservative non profit with strong anti LGBTQ rhetoric.”

Another merchant saw its account shut down after handling transactions for an upcoming event, prompted by social media commentary from the event’s organizer that described then-President Joe Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci as enemies and characterized Black Lives Matter activists as Marxists.

JPMorgan Chase said in a statement that it has since “improved the way we do business” and prohibits discrimination against customers based on political or religious views.

The OCC did not announce any bank penalties in its report, but it signalled that it is currently reviewing additional regulatory and supervisory measures to avert similar occurrences in the future.

The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau responded to the report in a press release this week by promising to address any “harm” caused by the debanking.

It said it would “fully investigate whether the institutions featured in OCC’s report and others have complied with federal consumer financial laws and take appropriate action.”