Carter calls this alleged discrimination campaign operated by Chokepoint 2.0, which refers to the Obama-era Antifraud program, where U.S. officials reportedly blocked banks from processing pornography, payday loans and other adverse industries. Trump himself adopted the terminology during his campaign ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“I’m glad the Trump administration is in this fight and I hope they can build a framework for the entire banking industry,” Carter said in a conversation with Wired.
The FDIC and the Fed declined to comment. “It is unacceptable for banks to discriminate against customers or potential customers based on political or religious beliefs,” said Gould, OCC Currency Auditor General. “I intend to assess the size and scope of this issue and take appropriate action to characterize the federal banking system and ensure that banks provide fair access to financial services as required by law.”
In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, Trump claimed that he had experienced direct revocations in person: Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase had previously withdrawn their accounts or refused to accept his deposit. Trump claimed: “The discrimination against me is very serious.”
“We won’t close accounts for political reasons, and we agree with President Trump,” said Patricia Wexler, managing director of corporate communications at JP Morgan. Bank of America declined to comment, but pointed to subsequent interviews, with its CEO Brian Moynihan saying: “We’ll all be banking.”
According to Donald Trump Jr., the bank’s actions helped awaken the Trump family and become the promise of cryptocurrency, the foundation of a parallel financial system in which everyone has their own custody of funds. “We’re in cryptocurrency not because it’s hey, it’s the next cool thing. We’re out of necessity,” he told CNBC in June.
Since Trump returned to the White House, cryptocurrency companies have found that, as Wired previously reported, crypto companies have found it easier to get accounts with Bank of America. But despite the recent shift in atmosphere, there are still side effects regarding the practicality of executive orders and potentially unnecessary side effects related to terms that limit banks may refuse to serve customers.
“It is not feasible to ask banks to serve all customers only, as banks should be allowed to decide at their discretion,” Carter said. “The challenge is to install a supervision system that causes banks to lose unprofitable or risky customers in the ordinary course of business, while ending the practice of revoking customers due to their politics.”
Carter suggested that a step towards achieving this could be to cut the doctrine of “confidential regulatory information”, under which banks are preventing disclosures to the public about the details of certain discussions with regulators.
“While Swan has no explanation and no recourse in 2022, I believe private businesses, even banks, can assess risks and decide who they want to do business with,” said Cory Klippsten, CEO of Bitcoin services firm Swan Bitcoin. “This looks more like the rewards of political theaters and crypto campaign donations than a real attempt to solve the problem.”
The White House declined to comment.
The crypto industry can only be confident in its long-term security in the U.S. market once it gains access to banking, beyond the executive order, which is easily revoked by future governments.
“Even if there is a more friendly government right now, there is still no law woven into the law,” said Azeem Khan, founder of Crypto Startup Miden, who spoke with Wired earlier this year. “[We need] The new law allows us to ensure that the pendulum does not swing based on who sits in a chair. ”
