The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), on October 14, 2026, released a report entitled Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans. In September 2025, the OCC undertook a review of the activities of the then nine largest U.S. national banks based on asset size to determine whether those banks had policies or practices that may have required, encouraged or otherwise influenced the banks to deny or limit access to financial services based on political or religious beliefs or affiliations or lawful business activities. The OCC stated that it conducted the review in accordance with Executive Order 14331, which directed each of the federal banking regulators to conduct a review to identify financial institutions that have had any past or current, formal or informal, policies or practices that require, encourage, or otherwise influence such financial institution to engage in politicized or unlawful debanking, which the executive order defined as an act by a financial services provider to adversely restrict access to, or adversely modify the conditions of, accounts, loans, or other banking products or financial services of any customer or potential customer on the basis of the customer’s or potential customer’s political or religious beliefs, or on the basis of the customer’s or potential customer’s lawful business activities that the financial service provider disagrees with or disfavors for political reasons.
The OCC’s report concluded that, in the OCC’s view, broad reputation risk policies that lacked clear standards and objective, risk-based criteria had the effect of limiting access to financial services to certain persons and entities based on their political, religious, or social views or based on their lawful business activities. The report does not assert that such practices were necessarily unlawful, but it did observe that such practices adversely affected certain customers, including small and mid-sized businesses, and may have hindered competition and innovation in certain industries.
The report noted that the OCC has taken or is considering taking certain actions in response to the report. In particular, the report noted that, as described in OCC Bulletin 2025-22, the OCC will consider a bank’s record of, and policies and procedures designed to avoid, politicized or unlawful debanking where relevant to applicable factors the OCC is required to review when evaluating corporate applications. The report also noted that the OCC has removed references to reputation risk from its policy issuances and will no longer examine banks for reputation risk. According to the report, the OCC is considering further rulemaking to prevent banks from discriminating against customers or prospective customers on the basis of their political or religious beliefs and is also considering providing guidance clarifying the risk-based application of the Bank Secrecy Act to certain customers or business activities.