Debanking: When Big Banks Cancel Customers for Their Beliefs

Imagine your next interaction with a bank teller. You’re there to make a deposit, and you brought along your account information and proper identification to make sure the transaction goes off without a hitch.

But a question from the teller catches you off guard: “Sir, before we complete your transaction, we just need you to fill out this brief questionnaire. Just explain the criteria you use to vote in elections, and we’ll get this all wrapped up.”

You’d be shocked, and rightly so. Will the bank only grant you access to your own account if you plan to vote consistent with the bank’s values? You’d certainly hope not.

Yet, the findings released in an October 2026 federal report from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) suggest that’s exactly what happened among some of the largest banks in the country.

What is debanking?

“Debanking” occurs when a financial institution cancels a customer’s account—often abruptly and without meaningful explanation.

Banks have long closed accounts for legitimate reasons like fraud or illegal activity. But today, many large financial institutions are relying on vague concepts like “reputational risk” or “social risk” to justify cutting off customers engaged in entirely lawful activities. These risk categories can encompass everything from political advocacy to charitable work—giving banks sweeping discretion to decide who can participate in the financial system. And, as the OCC report found, almost none of the banks could actually express “objective, measurable, or quantifiable standards” when it came to assessing potential “reputational risks.”

The Rise of “Reputational Risk” as a Reason for Cancellation

Banks often claim they are navigating complex regulations or managing legal exposure. But when customers are left in the dark—and given no meaningful opportunity to respond—those explanations fall short.

And even if customers had gotten a chance to respond, what would they even be responding to? Without objective or quantifiable standards, customers are effectively being asked to hit a constantly moving target.

Case Study: National Committee for Religious Freedom

That’s what happened to the National Committee for Religious Freedom (NCRF). Led by former US Ambassador Sam Brownback, NCRF exists to defend religious freedom “equally for all Americans and all their religious communities.” Its National Advisory Board includes former members of Congress, former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former ADF President and CEO Michael Farris, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, and Roman Catholic Archbishop Emeritus of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, along with Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu religious freedom advocates.

NCRF’s credibility isn’t in question. As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, it had every legal right to hold a bank account. Yet the nation’s largest bank shut down its newly opened checking account within weeks.

The Real-World Impact of Being Debanked

NCRF opened a checking account with JPMorgan Chase in April 2022. A few weeks later, the bank closed it.

Chase never told NCRF. The organization found out on May 19, when one of its founders went to a local Chase branch to deposit a donation. Branch staff said the account had been restricted and marked for closure. All they could add was that Chase’s corporate office had closed it and that employees weren’t allowed to share anything more. A letter reached NCRF the following week. It was dated May 6 and said Chase would end the relationship on May 9.

NCRF wasn’t the only one. In fall 2022, the organization launched its #ChasedAway campaign to hear from other Americans who had been debanked in similar ways.

Lack of Transparency and Flimsy Excuses

For weeks, NCRF got the runaround from various bank employees. At first, no one could say why the account was closed.

Eventually, a Chase representative said the bank might consider reopening the account if NCRF did two things: disclose a list of donors who gave more than 10 percent of its operating budget and explain the criteria it uses to decide whom to support politically. NCRF declined. It wanted to protect its donors’ privacy and doubted that Chase made the same demands of other nonprofits.

As pressure mounted, Chase’s story kept changing. The bank first denied asking invasive questions about donors. Then it said it had to ask to comply with federal money laundering and terrorism financing rules. When that fell flat, Chase claimed Brownback, a former US senator and ambassador, was a “Politically Exposed Person” who triggered extra scrutiny. But the guidelines specify that politically exposed persons do not include U.S. public officials. Put simply, the rule Chase cited doesn’t even apply.

Someone at Chase decided to close NCRF’s account. The explanations that followed were weak and contradictory, and none of them held up.

It’s hard to conceive of NCRF’s experience as anything other than debanking, a dangerous cocktail where politically obsessed cancel culture meets the financial services industry. And this case is far from an isolated incident of viewpoint-based debanking.

What the federal government found

In October 2026, the OCC, the federal regulator that oversees national banks, released the results of a review it launched in September 2025. The review focused on the nine largest national banks the OCC supervises, which together hold about three-quarters of the assets of the institutions it regulates. The OCC reviewed nearly 100,000 complaints, hundreds of individual bank decisions, and about 420,000 pages of bank documents covering 2020 through September 2025.

The verdict: all nine banks had policies that put customers at risk of being denied financial services because of their political or religious beliefs or their lawful business activities.

The OCC’s examples sound a lot like NCRF’s experience. A JPMorgan subsidiary closed the account of a merchant selling MAGA merchandise. Working with bank reputation risk employees, it also closed the account of a religious nonprofit that employees labeled “right wing.” In 2023, a bank employee scrubbed the words “right wing” and “religious” from the internal record.

The OCC found that the banks “largely lacked clear and measurable standards” for these decisions. Employees escalated customers whose views fell outside the perceived “mainstream,” and similar customers at the same bank got different outcomes. One bank admitted that “there can be no definitive checklist.” Another applied a “partisan” screen to groups on both sides of the political spectrum, yet still turned away customers merely for the views they hold. When banks judge customers by their views, no bank account is safe.

The OCC acknowledged it could not measure the full extent of debanking. But the pattern it documented is clear, and one concept runs through it all: reputational risk.

The problem with “reputational risk”

Reputational risk, as the OCC describes it, is the potential for harm to a bank from negative public perception associated with a particular customer. In practice, it often means banks are making subjective judgments about which viewpoints, causes, or associations are acceptable, and which are not. Customers are rarely given clear answers or defined standards. That lack of transparency creates fertile ground for abuse.

No American should have to wonder whether their bank will cancel them for supporting the “wrong” cause or holding the “wrong” views.

Debanking is a threat to more than your bank account. Access to banking is not a luxury—it’s a necessity. Without it, individuals can’t receive paychecks, businesses can’t operate, and nonprofits can’t serve their communities. Being debanked doesn’t just inconvenience—it can paralyze operations.

That’s why this issue goes far beyond dollars and cents. It’s about whether Americans remain free to live and work according to their beliefs without fear of financial punishment.

Pushing back against politicized debanking

Momentum is building to stop viewpoint-based debanking—and Alliance Defending Freedom is leading the effort.

We have worked alongside state leaders, financial institutions, and federal officials to restore fairness and accountability to the banking system. States like Tennessee, South Carolina, and Idaho and major banks like Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Charles Schwab, PNC Bank, East West, Truist, and Regions have taken steps to guard against discriminatory debanking with ADF’s help.

We have also worked directly with federal officials to secure protections nationwide. That effort led to a major step forward in August 2025, when President Donald Trump signed the executive order “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans.”

The order directs regulators to eliminate vague “reputational risk” standards, ensure decisions are based on objective criteria, and investigate past instances of unlawful debanking. It makes clear that no American should lose access to financial services because of their religious beliefs, political views, or lawful activities.

We appreciate President Trump taking this issue seriously and empowering his administration to protect Americans from losing access to their own finances due to vague or weaponized policies.

But more work remains. These protections must be fully implemented—and strengthened—so that every American is treated fairly by the institutions they depend on.

A window of opportunity to stop debanking

No one should lose access to the financial system because of their beliefs.

Banks play a vital role in our economy. With that role comes responsibility. Institutions that benefit from public trust—and significant government support—should not pick winners and losers based on ideology.

“Too big to fail” should never mean “too big for accountability.”

At this pivotal moment, leaders in both the public and private sectors have an opportunity to reaffirm a simple principle: In America, your access to basic financial services should never depend on your viewpoint.

Find out more about what ADF is doing to counter Corporate America’s threats to free speech and religious liberty, like debanking: