February 05, 2025

Ahead of Banking Committee Hearing, Warren Calls on President Trump to Prevent Debanking of Americans

Warns that Bessent’s “decision to halt activity at the CFPB will only impede efforts to stop debanking.”

New analysis identifies thousands of debanking complaints, causing substantial hardship for consumers, with more than half against four big banks: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup

CFPB and federal regulators have tools to address threat of debanking; Instead of shutting down CFPB, Trump must empower agency to finalize and enforce debanking safeguards 

Text of Letter to President Trump (PDF) | Debanking Complaints Analysis (PDF) 

Washington, DC - Ahead of today’s Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on debanking, Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released a letter calling on President Donald Trump to prevent the debanking of Americans across the country. Senator Warren pressed the President to support the ongoing efforts of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the main federal agency working to stop unfair debanking, and direct other agencies to use their authorities to bring an end to this practice. Senator Warren also released an analysis revealing the thousands of debanking-related complaints lodged by consumers in the last three years alone. More than half of these complaints were lodged against the four largest banks in the United States: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup. 

At the World Economic Forum, President Trump criticized the practice of debanking and underscored in a recent executive order that “protecting and promoting fair and open access to banking services for all law-abiding individual citizens and private-sector entities alike” is Administration policy. In her letter, Senator Warren reiterated her willingness to work with President Trump, Chairman Tim Scott, and any other members of Congress to unrig the economy and improve access to financial services, including by bringing an end to unjustified debanking of American citizens and businesses. 

Senator Warren laid out five separate CFPB efforts that address the threat of debanking: 

  1. Prohibit financial companies from using contract clauses that allow for debanking based on free speech, political affiliation, or religious views. 
  1. Clarify that when data brokers sell certain sensitive consumer information, they are "consumer reporting agencies" under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, requiring them to comply with consumer safeguards. This would protect certain debanked consumers by providing them with an adverse action notice and a right to challenge the account closure. 
  1. Limit bank overdraft fees, a key cause of debanking, to $5 or a fee that simply covers the bank’s costs and losses. Banks can also extend overdraft loans if they comply with longstanding lending laws, including disclosing the interest rate. 
  1. Make clear that discriminatory debanking, including for religious affiliation, can be an unfair act or practice under the Consumer Financial Protection Act, giving the agency additional authority to protect debanked consumers. 
  1. Supervise large payment apps like PayPal and CashApp, enabling the agency to more easily weed out unlawful debanking practices on these apps. 

Senator Warren called on President Trump to empower the CFPB to move forward with these efforts – instead of halting all CFPB rulemaking, enforcement investigations, and litigation against lawbreaking financial institutions like Secretary of the Treasury and Acting CFPB Director Scott Bessent has done. The CFPB freeze conflicts with the Administration’s stated goal of preventing debanking and lowering costs for American families. More Americans across the country will unfairly lose access to deposit accounts as a result.