Executive Order on Debanking

In case you missed it, President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO), “Guaranteeing Fair Banking For All Americans” on August 7, 2025. It stated that …Financial institutions have engaged in unacceptable practices to restrict law-abiding individuals’ and businesses’ access to financial services on the basis of political or religious beliefs or lawful business activities…. It went on to state that …bank regulators have used supervisory scrutiny and other influence over regulated banks to direct or otherwise encourage politicized or unlawful debanking activities. And, it is now …the policy of the United States that no American should be denied access to financial services because of their constitutionally or statutorily protected beliefs, affiliations, or political views, and to ensure that politicized or unlawful debanking is not used as a tool to inhibit such beliefs, affiliations, or political views. Banking decisions must instead be made on the basis of individualized, objective, and risk-based analyses.

There is a lot to unpack here. First, this EO applies to all of a financial institution’s products and services. While it doesn’t necessarily create new prohibited basis characteristics (i.e., race, sex, age, etc.), the regulatory agencies have been directed to implement this EO and that will ultimately trickle down to financial institutions. On the other hand, an EO is not law so whether this will stick for the long term still remains to be seen. For the time being, at least, they are looking at this through an unfair, deceptive or abusive act or practice (UDAAP) lens which is a law already on the books.

Jerod addressed this more during our Monthly Connection (see clip below).