For years, pastors, ministry leaders and small religious nonprofits have told the same story. An account that had worked fine for years was suddenly closed. A letter arrived with no real explanation. A credit line that should have been routine was quietly turned down. Many were told they were imagining things.
On Wednesday, Oct. 14, the federal regulator that oversees the country’s biggest banks put some of those stories on the record. The OCC debanking report, a lengthy review titled “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans,” found that every one of the nine largest national banks supervised by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency had policies between 2020 and September 2025 that could steer bankers to deny or limit service based on a customer’s political or religious beliefs, or on lawful but unpopular lines of business.
The banks named are JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD Bank and BMO.
What the OCC Debanking Report Found
According to the OCC’s official news release, examiners reviewed nearly 100,000 customer complaints and roughly 50,000 documents totaling about 420,000 pages. The review was ordered under Executive Order 14331, which President Trump signed in August 2025 and which requires banking decisions to rest on individual, objective, risk-based analysis.
The central finding is about something called reputation risk. Banks use the term to describe the danger that serving a customer will bring bad press or public backlash. The OCC concluded that the banks’ broad reputation risk policies lacked clear standards and objective criteria, and that in practice they disadvantaged some Americans because of their political, religious or social views.
The report also found that the banks kept public and private policies restricting service to whole industries. Those included oil and gas exploration, coal mining and coal-fired power, firearms and ammunition makers and sellers, detention facility operators, tobacco and e-cigarette sellers, and digital asset companies.
Comptroller Jonathan V. Gould did not soften the conclusion. He said the report offers “irrefutable evidence” that the largest banks denied, debanked and discriminated against customers. He also said he was not confident the banks’ recent reforms would be enough to stop it from happening again.
The Faith-Based Cases Inside the Report
Most early coverage of the OCC debanking report focused on politics, from conservative retailers to Trump-branded merchandise. But the full OCC report contains a series of cases that matter directly to people of faith. Stucci Media read the document itself rather than relying on summaries. Here is what it describes.
A religious nonprofit at WePay. In June 2021, WePay, a payments company then owned by JPMorgan Chase, closed the account of a nonprofit it had served since 2019. Internal records described the group as a right-wing religious conservative nonprofit. According to the report, the bank’s reputation risk staff had reviewed negative press, including a Southern Poverty Law Center label calling the group a hate group, and recommended exiting the account. Deseret News, which reviewed the same report, said the group’s mission centered on pro-life, pro-marriage and pro-family positions.
The story did not end there. A second account for the same nonprofit was opened in 2022 and closed about six months later on reputation risk grounds before the closure was reversed. In 2023, a bank employee edited the internal tracking record to remove the words “right wing” and “religious.”
A devout Christian’s legal challenge. In July 2021, WePay closed an account used to raise money for a legal challenge brought by a person the bank’s own records described as a devout Christian, contesting certain anti-discrimination laws. The account was escalated to reputation risk staff before it was shut down.
A religious nonprofit at Wells Fargo. Working through an independent sales organization, Wells Fargo pushed to close a religious nonprofit’s merchant account after citing a third-party website about the group’s views on same-sex marriage. The report says the nonprofit got no advance warning. It later declined an offer to have the account reinstated.
A health care sharing ministry at TD Bank. TD rated a faith-based health care sharing ministry’s line of credit as an elevated reputation risk. Bank records said the ministry’s religious requirements appeared to conflict with TD’s values of diversity and inclusion.
Other flags. Capital One reviews of a religious organization flagged its positions on abortion and LGBTQ issues and its ties to conservative politics. PNC declined a credit line to a media company in 2021, citing an owner’s foundation that had funded Christian conservative groups. The report also notes that some bank policies listed “religious leaders” among the types of clients requiring extra scrutiny.
It Was Not Only Conservatives
A fair reading of the OCC debanking report shows the problem was not limited to one side. Capital One declined a primary banking relationship with an organization supporting reproductive rights in 2023 and passed on a card relationship with it the following year. A bank risk employee noted that about 95% of a related group’s political contributions went to Democrats. Capital One also turned down a public education group whose political arm endorsed only Democratic candidates.
The report says Capital One’s policy on partisan activity was applied to both sides, while organizations seen as bipartisan were served. That detail matters. It suggests the deeper flaw was a vague standard that let bankers act on discomfort with a customer’s beliefs, whatever those beliefs happened to be.
The report also found that ordinary customers were more likely to be cut off over allegations or negative news coverage than wealthy clients were. In plain terms, a small church or a family business had less room for error than a high-net-worth account holder.
How the Banks Responded
The banks have pushed back on the idea of a coordinated campaign. JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon said, as quoted by Deseret News, “We don’t debank people because of political or religious affiliations.” JPMorgan told Banking Dive the findings reflect a limited number of historical interactions, that its policies prohibit political or religious discrimination, and that it has improved how it does business. On the edited WePay records, JPMorgan said all versions were kept in an audit file. It said the WePay process did not meet its expectations and that the business no longer operates.
JPMorgan also made an argument many bankers share. Years of pressure from regulators, it said, created a culture of caution across the industry that needs fixing. Banks are required by law to screen customers for money laundering and terrorist financing risks, and the OCC itself acknowledged that those rules can justify some denials.
The Bank Policy Institute, the trade group several banks referred reporters to, told Axios it supports preventing political or religious discrimination and backs focusing on material financial risk rather than reputation. PNC said it was reviewing the report. Wells Fargo declined to comment, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The OCC says all nine banks told it they have revised or consolidated their reputation risk policies. Several now weigh reputation only alongside financial risks. But the regulator also says no bank has fully and publicly acknowledged its past debanking decisions or set up a program to make affected customers whole. It warned that reputation risk is sometimes simply renamed “franchise” or “brand” risk.
What the Report Cannot Tell Us
The OCC debanking report has real limits, and the agency spells them out. It could not measure how many customers were affected or how much money they lost, because its findings depended on what the banks handed over and how well they tracked their own decisions. The examples were chosen partly because some banks cooperated more thoroughly, so the number of cases listed for each bank does not reflect how often that bank did it.
Anti-money laundering compliance was only partly reviewed. Card networks and state fair access laws were largely outside the scope. And no bank has been fined or formally sanctioned. PYMNTS reported that regulators could seek penalties, but the legal basis for doing so is unclear.
There is also a political backdrop worth noting. President Trump has made debanking a personal cause, confronted Bank of America’s chief executive about it in early 2025, and sued JPMorgan Chase in January 2026 over the closure of his own accounts. JPMorgan denies wrongdoing in that case. Supporters see the OCC review as long overdue accountability. Skeptics see an administration using regulators to settle scores with banks. Both sides can find material in a report that documents real harm while admitting it cannot measure the full scale.
The CFPB Steps In
The same day the OCC released its findings, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced its own initiative. Acting Director Mark Paoletta said the bureau will fully investigate whether the banks in the report, and others, complied with federal consumer financial law.
The CFPB says it will review complaints, supervisory records and enforcement data for signs of unlawful debanking. It pointed to the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which require lenders to give customers notice when they are turned down, and to its authority over unfair, deceptive or abusive practices.
Not everyone thinks this is the best use of the bureau’s limited resources. When the CFPB first began combing its files for debanking cases in 2025, Adam Rust of the Consumer Federation of America told Bloomberg Law that plenty of other problems in banking deserve attention, including fraud and discrimination that hit vulnerable consumers.
Why It Matters
For churches, ministries and faith-based charities, a bank account is not a luxury. It is how they pay staff, collect tithes, run food pantries and send relief to disaster zones. When an account is closed without warning, the damage lands on the people those groups serve. The OCC debanking report puts specific faith-related cases in writing from a federal bank regulator, with the banks’ own internal language attached.
For veterans and military families, the stakes are similar. Some run small businesses in industries the report says were restricted, including firearms retail and energy work. A veteran-owned gun shop or a family oil-field services company does not have a team of lawyers to fight a vague reputation risk decision.
For working Americans in general, the lesson is about fairness and transparency. Banks are private companies, but national banks operate under federal charters with federally backed deposit insurance. The report found that poor communication often left customers unable to understand or challenge decisions, and that some accounts could have stayed open if banks had simply explained themselves. With household budgets already squeezed by rising prices tracked in the latest inflation report, losing access to a bank on short notice is a real hardship.
Finally, the report’s own evidence shows why the fix has to be neutral. The same vague standard that shut out a Christian ministry also shut out abortion-rights groups. A rule that protects one side and not the other will not last past the next election. A rule that requires every decision to rest on measurable financial risk protects everyone. Readers who follow these issues can find more of our faith and religious liberty coverage and politics reporting on Stucci Media.
What Happens Next
The OCC says it is considering further rules and guidance to stop banks from discriminating based on political or religious beliefs, and to limit the role of reputation risk in bank decisions. It also plans more guidance on how banks apply Bank Secrecy Act requirements, with the goal of preventing banks from using compliance concerns as a pretext to close accounts. The agency earlier removed reputation risk from its bank examinations.
For customers, the practical steps are simple. Anyone who believes a national bank closed or denied an account because of faith or politics can file a complaint through the OCC’s HelpWithMyBank.gov site. The CFPB also accepts debanking complaints through its online portal and at (855) 411-2372. Keep every letter, email and account notice. The report makes clear that documentation is what turns a suspicion into a case.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the OCC debanking report?
It is a federal review released Oct. 14, 2026, by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. It examined whether the nine largest national banks it supervises denied or limited services based on customers’ political or religious beliefs or lawful business activities between 2020 and September 2025.
Which banks were named in the report?
JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD Bank and BMO. The OCC found all nine had policies during the review period that could lead to that kind of debanking.
Did the report find that religious groups were targeted?
The report documents several cases involving faith-based customers, including account closures for a religious nonprofit and an account funding a Christian’s legal challenge, and a TD Bank risk rating that cited a ministry’s religious requirements. The OCC did not measure how many religious customers were affected overall.
Were any banks fined?
No. As of Oct. 18, 2026, the OCC has not fined or sanctioned any bank over these findings. It says it is weighing new rules and guidance, and the CFPB has opened a separate review of possible violations of consumer financial law.
What can I do if I think my bank debanked me?
Save all account notices and correspondence, then file a complaint with the OCC at HelpWithMyBank.gov if your bank is a national bank, and with the CFPB through its online complaint portal or by phone at (855) 411-2372.
Rocci J. Stucci is the founder and CEO of Stucci Media and host of The Rocci Stucci Show.
