A New Era for Banking: What President Trump’s Debanking Executive Order and Related State Laws Mean for Financial Institutions, Government, and Banking Customers – Part 1

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Today’s podcast features the first part of a recent webinar produced on September 24, 2025, titled: "A New Era for Banking: What President Trump's Debanking Executive Order and Related State Laws Mean for Financial Institutions, Government, and Banking Customers."

In Part 1, we discuss the following topics:   

1. History of Debanking, including:

• Operation Chokepoint: An initiative by federal prudential banking regulators during the Obama administration aimed at discouraging banks supervised by them from providing services to companies engaged in payday lending.

• OCC Final Regulation on Debanking: Issued by Acting Comptroller Brian Brooks toward the end of President Trump’s first term, this regulation applied only to the largest banks in the country. It was sent to the Federal Register but never published and, therefore, never became effective.

2. Elements and Scope of the Debanking Executive Order

3. Statutory Authority (or Lack Thereof) of the Executive Order, which was largely based on the unfairness prongs of UDAAP and UDAP, even though a federal district court in Alabama held a few years ago that such unfairness prongs do not cover discrimination.

Our presenters, who hold diverse views on the wisdom of the Executive Order, are:

• Jason Mikula
  Founder and Publisher, Fintech Business Weekly
  Jason Mikula is an independent fintech and banking advisor, consultant, and investor. He also publishes Fintech Business Weekly, a newsletter analyzing trends in banking and fintech. He opposes the Executive Order.
• Brian Knight
  Senior Counsel, Corporate Engagement, Alliance Defending Freedom
  Brian Knight serves as Senior Counsel on the Corporate Engagement Team at Alliance Defending Freedom. His work focuses on issues of financial access, debanking, and preventing the politicization of financial services. He opposes the Executive Order.
• Todd Phillips
  Assistant Professor of Law, J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University
  Todd Phillips is an assistant professor of law at Georgia State University. His areas of expertise include bank capital and prudential regulation, deposit insurance, and the laws governing federal regulators. He opposes the Executive Order.
• Will Hild
  Executive Director, Consumers’ Research
  Will Hild is the Executive Director of Consumers’ Research, the nation’s oldest consumer protection organization. He has led efforts to combat ESG and what he considers “woke capitalism,” including launching the Consumers First campaign. He supports the Executive Order.
• Graham Steele
  Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions, U.S. Department of the Treasury
  Graham Steele serves as the Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He is an expert on financial regulation and financial institutions, with over a decade of experience working at the highest levels of law and policy in Washington, D.C. He opposes the Executive Order.

Alan Kaplinsky, the founder and first practice group leader and now Senior Counsel of the Consumer Financial Services Group at our firm, moderated the webinar.

We will be releasing Part 2 of this webinar on November 6, 2025.

A transcript of the recording will be available soon.

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