# The OCC Just Called Out All Nine of America’s Largest Banks for Debanking — and Crypto Made the List
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency dropped a report on Wednesday that reads like an indictment of the biggest names in American banking. After a sprawling supervisory review, the regulator concluded that all nine of the largest national banks it supervises maintained policies that denied or limited access to financial services based on political or religious beliefs and lawful business activities — and digital asset businesses were explicitly among the targets.
The nine institutions named are JPMorgan Chase Bank, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo Bank, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank, and BMO Bank. That is not a list of fringe players. It is effectively the backbone of American commercial banking, and according to the OCC, every single one of them operated policies between 2020 and September 2025 that the regulator now describes as discriminatory.
## What the OCC Actually Found
The review was conducted under President Trump’s executive order “Guaranteeing Fair Access to Banking for All Americans,” and the findings are blunt. The OCC determined that broad reputation risk policies — described in the report as lacking clear standards and objective, risk-based criteria — disadvantaged certain Americans based on their political, religious, or social views, or based on lawful business activities.
The scope of the review was enormous. The OCC reviewed nearly 100,000 complaints submitted to OCC-regulated institutions and received approximately 50,000 documents consisting of roughly 420,000 pages from the banks, covering their policies, procedures, practices, and individual customer decisions.
The report also identifies specific industry sectors that faced restricted access through both public and nonpublic bank policies: oil and gas exploration, coal mining and coal-powered plants, firearms and ammunition manufacturing or distribution, the construction or operation of detention facilities, tobacco and e-cigarette businesses — and digital asset activities.
For anyone who has watched crypto startups struggle to keep bank accounts open over the past five years, that last item lands as confirmation rather than revelation. Crypto founders have complained for years about suddenly losing banking relationships with little explanation, and the OCC report now puts the weight of a federal supervisory review behind those complaints.
## “Irrefutable Evidence”
Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan V. Gould did not mince words in the report’s announcement. “Today’s report provides irrefutable evidence that the nation’s largest banks have denied, debanked and discriminated against customers and lawful businesses,” Gould said. “Americans should have access to financial services regardless of their beliefs, affiliations, or political views. Fair access to financial services is not a mantra — it is a mandate.”
Gould also signaled that the report is not the end of the process. “Notwithstanding certain efforts by the largest banks to rein in these practices, I am not confident that they will be enough,” he said. “Accordingly, the OCC will be assessing further changes to the regulatory and supervisory framework applicable to the largest banks to reduce the likelihood of these harmful practices recurring in the future.”
## A Process Two Years in the Making
The OCC first announced this review in September 2025, targeting its nine largest banks by asset size, and issued preliminary findings in December 2025. Wednesday’s report represents the culmination of that process. Along the way, the regulator has already taken steps it says address debanking, including eliminating considerations of reputation risk in bank examinations, clarifying how improper debanking factors into licensing applications, and improving complaint intake and review processes.
The OCC says it is now considering further actions to prevent banks from discriminating against customers or prospective customers on the basis of political or religious beliefs, and to address what it calls the problematic role of reputation risk in bank decision-making.
## Why This Matters for Crypto
For the digital asset industry, the report is both a vindication and a potential inflection point. Debanking has long been one of the loudest grievances in crypto circles — startups losing accounts overnight, founders moving operations offshore, and payment processors quietly severing ties. Having the OCC formally document that digital asset activities were among the restricted sectors at all nine major banks gives the industry something it has rarely had: an official paper trail.
It also matters for context. While Bitcoin trades near 83,000 US dollars and the broader market debates ETF flows and macro data, the plumbing beneath the industry — basic access to bank accounts — has been a persistent, quieter constraint. A regulator now committed to dismantling that constraint changes the operating environment for exchanges, custodians, miners, and ordinary crypto businesses that simply need a checking account.
The caveat is that reports do not equal remedies. The OCC itself acknowledges it could not quantify the full extent of debanking, and banks have already made what the regulator describes as efforts to rein in these practices. Whether the promised changes to the regulatory framework arrive — and whether they hold — will determine whether Wednesday’s report becomes a turning point or just a very thorough document of a problem the industry already knew it had.
## The Bottom Line
The largest banks in the United States systematically restricted access to financial services for lawful businesses, crypto included, according to their own regulator. The OCC is promising structural fixes. For a crypto industry that has spent years being told its banking troubles were anecdotal, that admission is the story — and the follow-through is what to watch next.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
all nine of them. JPMorgan, BofA, Citi, Wells, US Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD, BMO. not a few bad apples, the entire top shelf had the same policy
sat in those risk committee meetings for 6 years, crypto founders were treated like plutonium. nobody who worked in compliance is surprised by this finding
six years in those meetings and saying it only now lol. still believe you though, the plutonium treatment was policy from the top, not one rogue analyst
@Petra Nov six years of meetings then a report that names everyone and fines no one. the words are on record now tho, that part is new
right, and the OCC supervised all nine the entire time this was happening. where was the report in 2023 when founders were getting accounts shuttered with zero recourse
@delta_hedged_dan the OCC supervised all nine the whole time, this report is basically a confession with footnotes. where the fines at
naming all nine in one footnote block is the OCC admitting it knew the whole time. regulators dont list banks like that unless the pattern was systemic
naming all nine is the point. its not de risking, its a coordination problem none of these banks will admit to out loud
The review window stops at September 2025. The real question is what changed after the executive order, and this report does not answer that.
Using a banking license to starve out lawful businesses over politics should cost more than a strongly worded supervisory report.
every crypto payments founder i know has a debanking story from 2023 and all nine names on that list appear in them. feels validating and useless at once
the review window ending September 2025 is the whole story for me. nothing after the executive order got captured, so the next report is the one that actually matters
the next report matters only if it ships with enforcement teeth. a second names-no-fines report just becomes a receipt the banks point at
fines are just a budget line at this scale. personally id like to see one compliance officer lose a license over this, that memo writes itself real quick
a compliance officer losing a license is the only penalty with deterrence here. fines at nine-bank scale are a rounding error against compliance budgets
names without fines becomes a receipt, exactly. first OCC consent order with a business line restriction and this report turns into retroactive ammunition
all nine banks, same policy, same excuse. crypto founders spent years being told to just open a business account like everyone else lol
And the account officers said yes at three different banks before compliance reversed every one. I kept the rejection letters, same paragraph each time.
those letters being word-for-word identical across banks is the tell nobody in the report touches. same paragraph, three banks, one policy upstream
identical paragraphs across three banks means one vendor or one association template. follow the compliance software contracts, thats the paper trail
three banks, one paragraph. whoever wrote that template sold it nine times and nobody at any bank read it
debanking stayed invisible because the debanked couldnt talk about it without inviting more scrutiny. this report existing at all means outside pressure finally worked
2020 through september 2025 is five years of the same policy at all nine banks and nobody internal flagged it. that part is almost scarier than the policy
nine for nine and the OCC still phrased it politely. that pattern only breaks when a bank actually risks its charter over it
charter risk is the only language that moves a nine bank board. until then this is a very well organized press release
six years of supervision and the report lands the same month the executive order needed a win. the timing is doing quiet work here
all nine had the same paragraph in rejection letters and the occ calls it independent risk policy. that word is doing zero work in this sentence