President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the two largest American banks previously rejected him as a customer, reviving claims that conservative clients were being unfairly denied accounts.
Trump told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in a wide-ranging interview that JPMorgan Chase informed him he had 20 days to move “hundreds of millions of dollars in cash” to another bank. He didn’t say when this happened.
The president said he then approached Bank of America to “deposit a billion dollars-plus” and was told the bank couldn’t provide him an account, Trump said.
“[Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan] said, ‘We can’t do it,'” Trump said. “So I went to another one, another one, another one. I ended up going to small banks all over the place. I mean, I was putting $10 million here, $10 million there.”
Shares of the two banks dipped more than 1% in afternoon trading.
Some conservatives, crypto executives and religious organizations have claimed to be unfairly “de-banked” by large U.S. financial institutions. Banks generally deny rejecting clientele based on political or religious beliefs, but say they are required to comply with federal laws aimed at preventing financial crimes, including the 1970 Bank Secrecy Act, and have faced regulatory pressure related to crypto and other industries that are considered higher risk for money laundering or fraud.
The topic came up again in January, when Trump accused Moynihan of denying services to conservative customers.
Banks in a bind
The issue puts banks in a bind; the companies risk further angering the president as he airs grievances that resonate with his supporters. At the same time, banks have been a major beneficiary of the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back Biden-era regulatory rules across a wide swath of financial activities.
The Trump administration is preparing an executive order that threatens the industry with fines if they drop customers on political grounds, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. A draft version of the order asks regulators to investigate whether banks violated laws, according to the Journal.
A trade group for big banks said that “regulatory overreach” was the root cause of the de-banking problem.
“Banking agencies have already taken steps to address issues like reputational risk, and we’re hopeful that any forthcoming executive order will reinforce this progress by directing regulators to confront the flawed regulatory framework that gave rise to these concerns,” the Bank Policy Institute told CNBC.
While Trump on Tuesday mentioned his business, likely referring to his real estate and hospitality conglomerate, it wasn’t clear if the events he described were in reference to personal or business accounts, or both.
Trump said that he believes banks rejected him and his supporters because regulators during the Biden administration applied pressure to the companies.
In a March lawsuit filed against Capital One, the president’s company alleged that the bank improperly closed more than 300 accounts a few months after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. The bank denied the accusations.
JPMorgan denied targeting conservatives or Trump supporters for de-banking.
“We don’t close accounts for political reasons, and we agree with President Trump that regulatory change is desperately needed,” a JPMorgan spokeswoman said Tuesday. “We commend the White House for addressing this issue and look forward to working with them to get this right.”
In a broadcast interview later Tuesday, Moynihan told CNBC that Trump was “after the right thing” in terms of criticizing an industry that is beholden to a web of regulations.
“We bank everybody, but the reality is, we want to make sure that the rules and regulations don’t cause decisions we make that then are looked at in the aftermath” and questioned, Moynihan said.
