Major US banks subjected Christian organisations and conservative causes to heightened scrutiny over their views on traditional family values, abortion, and gender identity issues according to a federal banking regulator’s report examining account closures and denials of financial services between 2020 and 2025.
The Debanking Review published this week by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) investigated 100,000 complaints and scrutinised 420,000 pages of bank documentation as part of a review into whether customers had been denied services because of their political, social, or religious beliefs. The review covered other types of customers apart from Christian organisations.
The OCC, which supervises national banks, examined the practices of nine major financial institutions in its report, Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans. The findings describe cases in which banks considered customers’ religious beliefs, political associations and public advocacy when assessing potential “reputational risk.”
In her October 14 article for the New York Post, journalist Miranda Devine wrote that the report found major banks had “closed accounts and refused credit to MAGA merchants, pro-life causes, religious groups, conservative organizations and sectors disfavoured by the Biden administration.”
The OCC’s findings raise questions about whether financial institutions applied risk policies consistently and whether lawful religious or political beliefs could become barriers to accessing essential banking services.
One of the most direct examples involved WePay, a payment-processing operation owned by JPMorgan Chase. According to the OCC report, WePay closed an account belonging to a religious nonprofit after employees characterised the organisation internally as a “right wing religious conservative non-profit with strong anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.”
The organisation’s views and mission were central to the internal discussion. The records described in the OCC review indicate that the company’s characterisation of the nonprofit changed during the process, including references to its promotion of traditional family values and positions described as pro-life, pro-marriage and pro-family.
A second account associated with the organisation was also closed after the relationship between the accounts was identified. The decision was later reversed, illustrating how the application of internal policies could change over time.
The report does not establish that every religious nonprofit or Christian customer was treated similarly. It does, however, document cases in which views on contentious social issues featured in internal risk assessments.
The OCC also examined a case involving Wells Fargo and a religious nonprofit whose views on same-sex marriage became a factor in its access to payment processing.
According to the regulator’s account, Wells Fargo provided information about the nonprofit’s website and its position on same-sex marriage to an independent payment processor, asking whether the information changed the provider’s assessment. The processor initially found no disqualifying conduct but later terminated the account.
The nonprofit reportedly received little advance warning or explanation, requiring it to notify donors and make changes to its fundraising arrangements. The processor subsequently offered to reinstate the account, but the nonprofit declined.
The episode illustrates how a bank’s concerns can affect a customer even when another company makes the final decision about whether to provide the service. Payment processors are important to charities that depend on online donations, recurring contributions and electronic transactions.
The OCC’s concern was not simply that institutions assessed financial risk, but that subjective reputational criteria could result in inconsistent decisions and inadequate explanations to affected customers.
The report also details a case involving PNC Bank, which refused a line of credit to a media company after an internal environmental, social and governance review considered the political associations of its owners.
According to the New York Post, the bank’s review noted that one owner’s foundation “has funded several Christian conservative groups, including several identified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.” The article also reported that another owner was described as “a conservative political commentator.”
An employee recommending refusal wrote: “I think it becomes really difficult to justify aligning ourselves with a company whose owners have built very public personas around opinions very contrary to PNC’s beliefs/values.”
That quotation provides a particularly direct illustration of the concern raised by the report: an employee appeared to consider whether a business’s owners’ public beliefs aligned with the bank’s own values when assessing a credit request.
The distinction is important. A bank may legitimately evaluate a borrower’s finances, legal exposure and ability to repay. The OCC’s review raises a different question: whether an applicant’s lawful associations or views influenced a decision that should have been grounded in clear, consistently applied criteria.
The OCC review found instances in which banks relied on Southern Poverty Law Center hate-group designations when assessing customers. The SPLC was indicted last April on federal fraud and money-laundering charges, with prosecutors alleging it defrauded donors of millions of dollars.
FBI Director Kash Patel has described the non-profit as a “partisan smear machine.” The allegations remain unproven and the SPLC denies wrongdoing.
The report also examined how banks assessed organisations involved in abortion-related debates and other politically sensitive causes. Devine’s article identifies a pro-life nonprofit that was flagged for further reputational-risk review by TD Bank. The concerns included the organisation’s national director having a “high political and media profile” and the approach of an election year.
Such considerations suggest that visibility and the possibility of controversy could become factors in banking decisions, even where the organisation’s activities were not shown to be unlawful.
The OCC also reviewed TD Bank’s assessment of a faith-based healthcare-sharing ministry. The bank raised concerns about the ministry’s religious requirements and its compatibility with the institution’s stated principles. An internal assessment quoted in the report stated that “the moral and religious requirements to participate in plans like [this plan] appear to conflict with TD’s values of diversity and inclusion.”
These examples demonstrate the tension between a bank’s own public commitments and the obligation to assess customers fairly. Institutions may establish compliance standards, but the OCC’s findings suggest that broad and subjective concepts such as reputation, public controversy and perceived ideological conflict can leave room for inconsistent treatment.
The review covered JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, US Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD Bank and BMO Bank. The investigation examined approximately 100,000 complaints and about 50,000 internal bank records. The OCC’s report describes a broader review of complaints, banking decisions and internal documentation.
The cases extended beyond Christian organizations. The Post reported examples involving conservative merchandise, firearms businesses, private-prison companies and other politically controversial sectors. It also noted that organisations across the political spectrum had been denied services in some circumstances.
Capital One, for example, considered political affiliation and partisan activity in its decisions about providing services. The OCC’s findings therefore do not support the claim that every case involved a Christian organisation, or that every bank decision was based on hostility to religion. Rather, they point to a wider problem involving how institutions defined and applied reputational risk.
Banks told the OCC they had revised their practices. Nevertheless, the regulator concluded that the reforms had not fully resolved its concerns. The report’s central warning is that unclear standards can leave customers exposed to decisions that are difficult to understand, challenge or predict.
The findings have renewed debate about whether financial institutions should be able to restrict services because a customer’s lawful beliefs or associations could provoke criticism, negative publicity or protests.
In the New York Post, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Acting Director Mark Paoletta condemned the reported practices, saying: “It is appalling that these banks targeted American consumers for their political, social, or religious beliefs that did not align with the Biden Administration or its leftist allies.”
That statement represents the official’s assessment of the findings, rather than a judicial determination that every bank named violated the law. The CFPB said it would investigate whether the institutions had complied with federal consumer financial laws and take appropriate action.
The distinction matters because the OCC report documents specific decisions and weaknesses in risk policies; it does not mean that every account closure was unlawful or that every institution acted for the same reason.
For Christian charities, pro-life organisations and other groups engaged in contentious public debates, the practical stakes are considerable. Access to banking and payment services can determine whether an organisation can receive donations, pay staff, meet expenses and continue its work.
The OCC’s findings put a central question before regulators and the banking industry: can banks manage legitimate financial and compliance risks without allowing subjective judgments about customers’ religious or political beliefs to become a barrier to service?
The documented cases suggest that clearer standards, consistent decision-making and meaningful explanations for account closures will be essential if banks are to demonstrate that customers are assessed on defensible grounds rather than on whether their beliefs are popular.
Under the Biden administration, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network sent an email in 2024 to the leadership of major banks highlighting a report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue titled Bankrolling Bigotry: An Overview of the Online Funding Strategies of American Hate Groups. That report listed the Alliance Defending Freedom and The Family Research Council as hate groups, but ADF has won multiple cases at the U.S. Supreme Court arguing for the free speech and religious freedom of Christians and non-Christians to live out their faith.
Whilst the available evidence does not demonstrate that the administration centrally directed a campaign to debank Christian organisations, the political and regulatory climate may have influenced how banks assessed reputational risk.
As I wrote here last month, a recent Department of Justice investigation in the United States concluded that the FBI’s controversial 2023 memo on “radical traditionalist Catholics” stemmed from systemic analytical failures and ideological bias inside the Bureau during the Biden administration.
Matt Moran is a writer living in Co. Cork with an interest in current affairs and religious issues