FTC Chairman Warns Payment Firms Against Denying Service Based on Ideology

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Andrew Ferguson sent letters on March 26 to Visa, Mastercard, and other financial infrastructure firms reminding them of their obligation to serve customers regardless of ideology.

Ferguson reached out to the companies’ CEOs, voicing concerns about financial service companies denying service to customers because of political or religious views.

“Full participation in commerce and public life necessarily requires that law-abiding individuals can access, and freely participate in, our financial system,” Ferguson wrote in a statement.

Besides Visa and Mastercard, Ferguson also contacted PayPal and Stripe.

The chairman went on to say that 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 cited President Donald Trump’s Aug. 7, 2025, executive order on debanking that states that it is unacceptable to debank law-abiding citizens on ideological grounds.

According to the FTC chairman, any company that debanks a customer over religious or political ideals could be violating the FTC Act.

Section 5 of the act in question prohibits unfair practices. According to the letters, companies that deplatform consumers or deny them access to financial practices would violate the act if the customer is acting reasonably and is not working in a way that causes avoidable injury.

A spokesperson for Stripe told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement, “At Stripe, we do not restrict access to our services based on political viewpoints or affiliation.”

The other companies contacted did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump’s August executive order banned politicized debanking, intending to reverse a trend of refusing service to individuals or companies for ideological reasons.

Advocates against political debanking have cited concerns by those who say they have been victims, including Christian organizations such as Tennessee-based nonprofit Indigenous Advance Ministries, as well as National Committee for Religious Freedom Chairman Sam Brownback and the U.S. president.

Following the allegations, banks have denied taking part in the politicized refusal of service.

“We don’t close accounts for political reasons, and we agree with President Trump that regulatory change is desperately needed,” Patricia Wexler, a spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase, told The Epoch Times in a statement at the time.

“We commend the White House for addressing this issue and look forward to working with them to get this right.”

In December 2025, a watchdog found that nine large U.S. banks actively engaged in debanking.

A Dec. 10 review report published by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) found that nine of its largest regulated institutions were involved in the practice, including Bank of America, BMO Bank, Citibank, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase Bank, PNC Bank, TD Bank, Wells Fargo Bank, and U.S. Bank.

“To date, the OCC has observed that between 2020 and 2023, the banks maintained public and nonpublic policies restricting certain industry sectors’ access to banking services,” the report reads.

The Bank Policy Institute, which represents the nation’s leading banks, including all nine listed in the OCC report, stated that the industry supports “fair access to banking and is already working together with Congress and the administration to ensure banks are able to serve law-abiding customers,” without giving more specific information.

In January, Trump filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase over alleged debanking.

The $5 billion lawsuit was filed in Florida because the bank allegedly shuttered Trump-affiliated accounts following the January 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol.

The lawsuit states that the financial institution’s “unilateral decision” resulted from “political and social motivations” and its “‘woke’ beliefs that it needed to distance itself from President Trump and his conservative political views.”

Andrew Moran and Kevin Stocklin contributed to this report.