Following today’s OCC report on debanking, the Cato Institute’s Nicholas Anthony argues that the agency overlooks regulators’ historical role in encouraging debanking while leaving important questions about the scale of political discrimination unanswered.

Anthony issued the following statement:

“The new OCC report on debanking leaves much to be desired. It largely treats reputational risk as a bank industry practice while giving insufficient weight to the role regulators played in making it a longstanding feature of bank supervision.”

“The report also raises questions about the scale of the problem. After reviewing nearly 100,000 complaints and hundreds of thousands of pages of bank documents, the OCC presents only a limited number of detailed examples of alleged political discrimination. Its findings about bank policies are broader than those individual cases, but the report does not establish the overall scale of the problem.”

Anthony is also the author of Cato’s Understanding Debanking, which examines the causes of account closures and argues that government pressure, rather than political or religious discrimination alone, is a central driver of debanking.

If you’re interested in speaking with Nick about the OCC’s findings, the role of regulators, or broader debanking reforms, I’m happy to connect you.

Best,

Ryan Carver
Media Relations Manager
540–589‑0573
Cato Institute
1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20001