The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said on October 14 that it will investigate whether the nine largest national banks broke federal consumer-finance law in how they limited access to banking. The nine are JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank and BMO Bank. Each was covered by a review from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the federal regulator that supervises national banks, and the CFPB’s announcement carries that review into the agency that takes consumer complaints. No bank has been found to have broken a law, and no penalty has been announced.
Three laws and a promise to investigate
Mark Paoletta, the CFPB’s acting director, said the bureau “will fully investigate whether the institutions featured in OCC’s report and others have complied” with federal consumer financial laws. He called the banks’ conduct “appalling” and said the CFPB will “take appropriate action.” The announcement names three laws the bureau will measure the banks against: the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act with its rules on adverse action notices, which are the letters a bank owes a customer when it denies or cuts back a service, and the federal ban on unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices. The CFPB says it holds primary supervisory and enforcement authority over banks with more than $10 billion in assets, a group that includes all nine.
The CFPB’s announcement describes two tracks. The first is an investigation of the OCC-named banks and “others,” and the bureau says it will open formal investigations “when warranted.” The second is housekeeping on its own rulebook: the CFPB says it reviewed its Examination Manual, guidance and regulations to remove “reputation risk” ideas that it says could lead to unlawful debanking, and it has been going through consumer complaints and supervisory and enforcement data. The release sets no end date and carries no statement from any of the nine banks.
For an individual customer, the boundary is set by what the OCC found: bank policies toward whole industries and beliefs, not account closures in general. Owners of businesses in sectors such as firearms, oil and gas and tobacco, and anyone who believes a closure or denial was tied to political or religious views, fit the pattern the agencies describe, and the CFPB says it “continues to encourage” consumers who believe they have been debanked to submit complaints. People whose accounts were closed for other reasons can still file, because the bureau’s complaint portal accepts complaints about checking and savings accounts.
The CFPB set no end date for its debanking inquiry, so the next step from the bureau or from any of the nine banks will arrive without a calendar notice.
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The OCC review behind the inquiry
The OCC published preliminary findings in December 2025. It said that between 2020 and 2023 the nine banks kept policies restricting access to certain industry sectors, often citing reputational concerns rather than core financial risks. The sectors on its list include firearms makers and sellers, Arctic oil and gas exploration, coal mining and coal-fired power plants, private prisons, payday and payroll lending, consumer debt collection, tobacco and e-cigarettes, adult entertainment, political action committees and parties, and digital asset businesses.
The OCC calls its review ongoing, with documents from 2020 through 2025 under examination, and says it intends to hold banks accountable for unlawful debanking, including by referring cases to the Attorney General as the executive order requires. The CFPB’s announcement singles out firearms, oil and gas, and tobacco as the sectors most affected. That frames the inquiry around how whole categories of customers were treated by the largest national banks.
Executive Order 14331 and its 120-day clock
President Trump signed Executive Order 14331, titled Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans, on August 7, 2025. Its policy statement says banking decisions must be made on “individualized, objective, and risk-based analyses.” The order gave each federal banking regulator 120 days to review the institutions it oversees for practices that required, encouraged or influenced politicized or unlawful debanking, and to take remedial action that can include fines and consent decrees.
Separate sections gave regulators 180 days to remove reputation risk from their guidance and examination materials, and 180 days to review complaint and supervisory data for debanking based on religion, with Equal Credit Opportunity Act cases that cannot be resolved going to the Attorney General for possible civil action. The order does not name the CFPB, but the Equal Credit Opportunity Act is the statute it uses for religious debanking, and it is one of the three laws Paoletta cited.
The CFPB’s announcement arrives more than a year after the signing. In the meantime the OCC has issued preliminary findings, and the CFPB has announced an inquiry rather than a case. None of the announcements describes a fine, a consent decree or an Attorney General referral against any of the nine banks.
Filing a debanking complaint with the CFPB
The CFPB complaint portal lists checking and savings accounts among the products it takes complaints about. Filing online takes about seven to ten minutes. A phone complaint at (855) 411-2372, open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern on weekdays except federal holidays, takes 25 to 30 minutes. The bureau forwards the complaint to the bank, which most often answers within 15 days, though a company can report that its response is in progress and give a final answer within 60 days.
The form asks for the key dates, amounts and communications in the customer’s own words, and accepts attachments up to 50 pages, such as account statements, closure letters and any adverse action notice. Name, email, phone number and address are required because the bank needs an address to respond. After the bank answers, the customer has 60 days to give feedback on the response, and the CFPB publishes complaint data with identifying information removed.
What happens to those complaints next is the part the announcement leaves for later. Paoletta says the bureau is already reviewing complaint and enforcement data, and the OCC says its own review continues. The next marker is whether the CFPB turns “when warranted” into a formal investigation of any of the nine banks, and whether the Attorney General referrals the OCC described follow.
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This article was prepared with AI assistance from cited public sources and reviewed before publication.
