FTC warns payment giants against political debanking

• Key insight: Four major payments companies must be on the lookout for evidence of debanking at their partner institutions, the FTC said Thursday.
• What's at stake: The Trump administration has scaled up its rhetoric against alleged political and religious debanking. Financial institutions have blamed regulations for decisions to cut ties with certain customers.
• Forward look: The FTC said it will throw the book at any payments processor it deems guilty of debanking, in line with a Trump executive order mandating that regulators crack down.

PayPal, Stripe, Visa and Mastercard are all in the regulatory hot seat for their alleged role in so-called debanking.
The Federal Trade Commission sent letters Thursday to the four payments companies' CEOs, warning them not to deny customers access to services for political or religious reasons.

The FTC's move is in line with oft-repeated rhetoric from President Donald Trump and his administration. Administration officials have regularly lambasted major financial institutions for allegedly illegally offboarding customers — a claim those banks have vehemently denied. 

Stripe, Mastercard and Visa did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. PayPal declined to comment.

FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in a prepared statement that any action by the companies to deplatform customers or deny them access to services for political or religious reasons could lead to an FTC investigation and potential enforcement action.

"It is inconsistent with American values to deny law-abiding individuals the ability to run their legitimate businesses and feed their families because they attracted the ire of rogue American officials, overzealous activists, or, more worryingly, foreign governments seeking to control public discourse," he said in the letters.

The letters to PayPal and Stripe cite articles with accounts of people who claimed they were debanked by the payments companies for ideological reasons. 

After the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, several payments companies, including Stripe and PayPal, stopped processing payments for certain groups, including President Donald Trump's campaign website and a Christian crowdfunding site that raised money for travel funds and legal costs for attendees of the riot. Stripe and PayPal said at the time that they wouldn't offer services to anyone who violated their policies related to inciting or promoting violence.

Going back even further, in 2019, PayPal cut ties with Alex Jones' Infowars and The Gab, both known for their connections to far-right rhetoric.

The FTC said Thursday in its letters to Mastercard and Visa that payments companies should also be on the lookout for examples of debanking by banks, and stop them.

"In recent years, there have been numerous publicly-reported examples of financial institutions denying their customers access to services due to their political or religious views," Ferguson said in the letters. "Equally concerning is the conduct of payments providers and payment networks that turn a blind eye when their financial institution members debank consumers for these reasons."

Ferguson, who became chairman of the FTC in January 2025, is a former Virginia solicitor general and a former chief counsel to Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Major banks, including Bank of America, JPMorganChase and Capital One Financial, have pinned blame for debanking allegations on their regulators. The banks have said that their decisions to offboard customers are typically related to avoiding certain sectors or businesses that oversight bodies have deemed risky or problematic. 

Financial institutions rarely give customers specific reasons for why they get axed, also due to regulations.

The Cato Institute said in a report earlier this year that most instances of debanking are likely due to regulatory pressure, rather than political or religious bias.

Stripe says on its website that it adheres to financial laws and regulations, as well as to the rules and policies set by its financial partners, which means it won't provide services to certain businesses and activities, "even if we might desire to do so."

"Crucially, in the area of political expression, we want to avoid becoming an arbiter of what speech is legitimate," the Stripe website says, on a page which lists restricted businesses. "At Stripe, we do not restrict access to our services based on political viewpoints or affiliation."

In the letters, the FTC specifically cautions against violations of Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices.

Political and religious debanking of customers has been a policy focus for the Trump administration and financial regulators. Last August, Trump issued an executive order mandating that regulators ensure banks aren't cutting ties with customers for political reasons.

In response, bank regulators have removed "reputation risk" from their exams. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency also said it had found examples of major banks unlawfully debanking customers in certain industries, such as oil and gas exploration, coal mining, firearms, private prisons, tobacco and e-cigarette manufacturers, adult entertainment and digital assets.

Trump has also filed lawsuits against Capital One and JPMorgan, claiming his businesses' accounts were illegally dropped by the banks following the riots in January 2021. The lawsuit against JPMorgan is ongoing. The complaint against Capital One was tossed out by a judge, though Trump can gather more evidence and refile it.