The White House order will involve banks being fined if they drop customers for political reasons or discriminate against digital asset firms and organizations.
The executive order directs bank regulators to investigate whether any banks or financial institutions might have violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, antitrust laws, or consumer financial protection laws, reported The Wall Street Journal on Monday.
The order threatens monetary penalties, consent decrees, and other disciplinary measures for violators and could be signed this week, the report added.
Big Banks Can’t Discriminate Against Crypto
“Cryptocurrency companies have said they were shut out of banking services under the Biden administration,” the report noted, though the order also includes being debanked on political grounds.
The banks claim their decisions are based on legal, regulatory, and financial risks, particularly anti-money laundering compliance, which has a wide scope, granting them a lot of control over people’s assets.
“We’ve provided detailed proposals and will continue to work with the administration and Congress to improve the regulatory framework,” a Bank of America spokesman told the outlet.
Banking regulators under Trump have already stopped assessing “reputational risk” from customers, which was seen as a boost for the crypto industry.
The move represents a significant shift from Biden-era banking oversight under Operation Chokepoint 2.0, with the Trump administration positioning itself as the protector of crypto interests against alleged financial industry bias.
There have been several cases in recent years where crypto industry experts or companies have been debanked, and the Trump administration clearly wants to put an end to this practice.
JPMorgan Chase informed Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong in December 2023 that they would close accounts of individuals whose primary income stemmed from crypto.
Sam Kazemian, founder of Frax Finance, also said that JPMorgan told him they would close the accounts of anyone whose primary source of income or wealth was crypto.
Custodia Bank CEO Caitlin Long, Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss, and the Bitcoin Foundation’s Charlie Shrem also said they were debanked.
In November 2024, Elon Musk posted evidence that 30 tech founders were debanked under the Biden administration.
Banks Still Hate Crypto
It is no surprise that banks harbor a lot of disdain against decentralized digital assets and companies that are part of the nascent industry.
Banks profit from lending out their customers’ money and impose high levels of control and restrictions on what customers can and cannot do with their own money. Crypto is the complete antithesis of this, enabling peer-to-peer transfers and freedom over finances.
Now that banks can see big profits in stablecoins, they appear to be warming to the industry (but for the wrong reasons).
In related news, the United Kingdom recently banned a Coinbase advertising campaign that was critical of its financial system.
