On October 14, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said it will investigate whether JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and six other big banks broke federal consumer laws when they closed or restricted customer accounts. The announcement follows a report from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the national bank regulator, and it comes with no findings, no penalties and no timeline.

The nine banks and what the OCC report said

The CFPB’s announcement names nine banks from the OCC’s report: JPMorgan Chase Bank, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo Bank, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC Bank, TD Bank and BMO Bank. The CFPB describes the OCC report as finding that the nine largest national banks it supervises kept policies or practices that denied or restricted financial access based on political or religious beliefs or on otherwise lawful business activities.

The release says the report includes excerpts from bank documents, among them emails, and that entire business sectors were affected, most notably firearms. Oil and gas and tobacco are also named. Those are the OCC’s findings as the CFPB summarizes them. The banks’ side of the story is not in the release.

Acting Director Mark Paoletta calls the practices appalling and says the agency “will fully investigate whether the institutions featured in OCC’s report and others have complied” with federal consumer financial laws. The words “and others” mean the inquiry is not limited to the nine.

For an ordinary customer the practical question is narrow: if a bank closed an account or cut off services and gave no clear reason, what notice is owed and where does the complaint go? A federal agency now says it wants to hear about it, and it has a form built for it.

The CFPB’s complaint process runs on set clocks, with most companies answering within 15 days and some taking up to 60, so the numbers in this story will keep moving as complaints come in.

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Three laws the CFPB says it will test the banks against

The CFPB says it will measure the banks against three laws: the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, with its adverse action notice requirements, and the ban on unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices. The agency says it has primary supervisory and enforcement authority over banks with more than $10 billion in assets. It also says it is reviewing consumer complaints, supervisory data and enforcement data for evidence of unlawful debanking.

The initiative is framed as carrying out Executive Order 14331, which President Trump signed on August 7, 2025. The order describes debanking as directly or indirectly restricting access to accounts, or adversely changing their conditions, for politicized or unlawful reasons. Its section 5(b) points to Section 1031 of the Consumer Financial Protection Act, the provision behind the ban on unfair, deceptive or abusive practices, which is one of the three laws in the CFPB’s announcement.

The CFPB says it has already reviewed its Examination Manual, guidance and regulations to make sure they contain no “reputation risk” concepts that could result in unlawful debanking.

What the CFPB has not said

The release offers no remedy for customers. It does not say that any bank will refund fees, reopen an account or pay anyone, and it names no investigation by bank, no enforcement action and no deadline. A statement that the bureau “will investigate” is a start of work, not a conclusion that a law was broken, and nothing in it says any of the nine banks has been found to have done so.

The bureau says it continues to encourage consumers to submit complaints if they believe they have been debanked, and it has updated its website and complaint portal with debanking information.

Filing a debanking complaint with the CFPB

The bureau’s complaint page has a debanking category. It defines debanking as a financial institution negatively restricting access to, or changing the conditions of, an account because of a current or potential customer’s political or religious beliefs. The page lists checking and savings accounts among the products it covers.

Start by contacting the bank, which the page says can usually answer questions unique to a customer’s situation. Then file online, which the page says usually takes under 10 minutes, or call (855) 411-2372 between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday. Use the customer’s own words, keep to the most important dates, amounts and communications, and attach statements or letters, up to 50 pages. The company cannot respond without a mailing address.

Most companies answer within 15 days, and some say a final response is in progress and take up to 60. After a response, the customer has 60 days to give feedback. Keep the closure notice, because the Fair Credit Reporting Act’s adverse action notice rules, which the CFPB cites, are among the things it says it will test. The page warns that a complaint generally cannot be filed twice for the same problem.

A complaint is not private. The CFPB says it goes to the company and may be shared with state and federal agencies, and that complaint data is published in the Consumer Complaint Database without information that identifies the customer. Personal information in a complaint cannot be deleted, and the bureau keeps it for 25 years under federal records rules. Customers should include only what they are comfortable having on file.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.