(Al Jazeera Media Network) United States President Donald Trump’s $5-billion lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase resurfaces his accusations of debanking – the act of removing a person or organisation’s access to financial services.
The complaint, filed in a Florida court on Thursday, alleges that the bank singled him out for political reasons and closed several of his accounts following the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, which was perpetrated by his supporters.
“JPMC does not close accounts for political or religious reasons. We do close accounts because they create legal or regulatory risk for the company. We regret having to do so, but often rules and regulatory expectations lead us to do so,” the bank said in a statement.
While the lawsuit was filed in his personal capacity, the concept of debanking has long been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration.
Late last year, the White House launched a high-profile effort targeting the nation’s largest financial institutions, accusing them of closing accounts based on political bias. Within days, Trump signed an executive order restricting banks from denying accounts on those grounds.
Trump has long framed “debanking” as a systemic effort targeting conservatives. But evidence for this claim is limited.
A Reuters news agency review of more than 8,000 complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) found only 35 related to political or religious reasons, let alone targeting Christians or conservatives specifically.
The push by banks centres on the use of “reputational risk” as a standard that allows them to weigh the social or political fallout of doing business with a client.
Critics say this practice makes banks arbiters of morality – freezing, withholding, or closing accounts based not on financial considerations but on social and geopolitical concerns. This approach has pulled financial institutions into the middle of cultural and geopolitical debates.
