‘De-Banking’ Is No Joke

T he writers and cast of Saturday Night Live recently found themselves hoisted with their own petard for pointing out former president Donald Trump’s use of the term “de-banking” as if the word didn’t exist. A simple internet search could have prevented the show from becoming the butt of its own joke by clarifying that the term is increasingly in common parlance. More important than the existence of the word and far more concerning, of course, is the actual practice of de-banking.

Banks are using intentionally vague policies and terms of service such as “reputational risk” to discriminate against gun manufacturers, distributors, and sellers; fossil-fuel producers; contractors for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency; and private prisons and related services. Now some of our nation’s largest and most powerful financial institutions have gone so far as to close the accounts of mainstream conservative and religious groups under the guise of “reputational risk” policies or prohibitions on “misinformation” or “intolerance.”

The Tennessee Legislature is currently considering H.B. 2100 and S.B. 2148 to prevent financial institutions from imposing political ideology as the new coin of the realm necessary for entry into the marketplace. Considering that a Tennessee-based charity is one of the most egregious examples of de-banking, Tennessee’s leadership on the issue should be applauded.

In 2023, Bank of America closed the long-standing bank account of Memphis-based Indigenous Advance Ministries, a Christian nonprofit that helps impoverished widows, orphans, and other at-risk populations in Uganda. The bank also closed the accounts of a local church that donates to the ministry. The bank told the ministries it would no longer serve their “business type,” and that Indigenous Advance exceeded the “bank’s risk tolerance.”

It did this right before a mission trip to Uganda, so Indigenous Advance struggled to quickly change accounts. It couldn’t pay its Ugandan workers on time. Like many of their countrymen, these Ugandans don’t live paycheck to paycheck, but meal to meal. And it had to reduce aid to many of its ministry partners while there.

This isn’t the only time Bank of America has canceled a ministry’s account under similar circumstances. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, a ministry named Timothy Two Project International received a nearly identical letter from the bank. Like Indigenous Advance, this ministry was repeatedly stonewalled in attempts to gain clarity about the cancellation and how to resolve it.

How many Christian ministries has Bank of America canceled in the same way? The simple answer is no one knows. Many people are often ashamed by an unexpected account cancellation, thinking they did something wrong when in reality they may have been targeted for their views. The fact that the question must be asked should shock us all.

Bank of America isn’t alone in its infamy. JPMorgan Chase, without notice or explanation, closed the account of the National Committee for Religious Freedom, a nonprofit advocacy group that exists to defend the right of everyone in America to live their faith freely. NCRF’s chairman is Sam Brownback, a former governor of Kansas, former U.S. senator, and former holder of the office of U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom.

To reconsider the account closure, Chase required NCRF to disclose a list of donors who contributed 10 percent or more to its operating budget, a list of candidates it intended to support, and its criteria for political support. If a high-profile individual such as Brownback must turn over information on his supporters to keep a checking account, what chance does the average non-profit ministry, advocacy organization, or small-business owner have if their bank does not agree with their religious or political convictions?

This is precisely the discrimination that H.B. 2100 and S.B. 2148 are designed to prevent. Clearly, banks should be able to consider the financial viability of customers seeking basic financial services, without which it is impossible to operate in today’s marketplace. But closing existing accounts and/or denying basic services based on religious or political beliefs is worse than bad business; it is un-American.

The only scenario more sinister than a behemoth of private industry seeking to cripple a small religious charity or political-advocacy group would be if the industry did so at the behest of the federal government. That’s David versus two Goliaths. The U.S. House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government held a hearing last week on this very subject.

As the writers at Saturday Night Live hopefully learned, de-banking is no joke. The creeping concentration of power in the private sector colluding with the government to bypass the Constitution by outsourcing censorship represents a new low. The American taxpayers will keep this in mind the next time a financial institution that is “too big to fail” comes looking for another bailout. Bank on it.