Last week World News Group published a story regarding debanking at Family Council and other organizations during its daily program “The World and Everything In It.”
Americans rely on banks and other financial institutions every day, and they expect these institutions to serve everyone regardless of their religious convictions or political positions. But over the past five years, congressional testimony and news stories have highlighted how federal officials and financial institutions targeted conservative organizations through debanking. Conservatives deemed “high risk” could have their bank accounts closed without warning and without explanation.
In 2021, Family Council’s credit card processor WePay — a company owned by JPMorgan Chase — terminated our account after designating our organization as “high risk.”
At 10:29 AM on Wednesday, July 7, 2021, our office received a terse email from WePay saying, “Unfortunately, we can no longer support your business. We wish you all the luck in the future, and hope that you find a processor that better fits your payment processing needs.”
Within 60 seconds, Family Council could no longer accept donations online. The processor never explained why we were labeled “high risk.” All we could do was speculate that our conservative principles and our public policy work might have had something to do with the decision to close our account.
Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident. Last month the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency released a major report showing that America’s largest financial institutions had internal policies and communications targeting conservatives for debanking. Officials say they plan to investigate whether these institutions broke any consumer protection laws.
Family Council is grateful to the many people and organizations who have stood up against debanking in recent years. After all, banks that are too big to fail are also too big to discriminate.
You Can Read or Listen to World News Group’s Story Here.
Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.
