JPMorgan Chase owned a payments company called WePay, in which a screening list existed. On that list were the phrases “MAGA,” “Make America Great,” and “America First.” Merchants who sold Trump hats and conservative merchandise found their accounts closed. When federal regulators went looking for the written standard WePay used to decide when a slogan crossed into prohibited hate or violence, they found that there was not one.
That detail comes from a report the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released Wednesday. The OCC reviewed the 9 largest banks it supervises: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD Bank, and BMO. Regulators examined nearly 100,000 complaints and roughly 420,000 pages of documents. They found that all 9 banks relied on “reputational risk” policies without clear, objective standards, and that those policies could disadvantage customers for their political views, their religious views, or their lawful lines of business.
For years, conservatives who complained about debanking were told they were paranoid. The report shows they were not.