Sponsors (48)
Official title: Amend the Federal Reserve Act to prohibit certain financial service providers who deny fair access to financial services from using taxpayer funded discount window lending programs, and for other purposes.
Introduced February 4, 2025 by Kevin Cramer · Last progress February 4, 2025
The bill strengthens access and legal remedies for lawful customers and small businesses by requiring objective risk criteria and enforcement tools, but it raises compliance, litigation, and potential security risks while creating regulatory uncertainty and possible costs that may be passed to consumers.
Small businesses, low-income people, and individual customers will face fewer arbitrary account closures and retain access to banking, ACH, card, and payment services when they are lawfully operating in their markets.
Customers and businesses will benefit from banks being required to adopt documented, impartial, quantitative risk-based standards, increasing transparency and reducing biased or ad hoc denials of service.
People and firms denied service have stronger legal remedies — including private suits, recovery of attorney’s fees, and treble damages for prevailing plaintiffs — increasing enforcement and deterrence against unlawful de‑banking.
Banks, large credit unions, and other institutions will face increased compliance, monitoring, and litigation costs to implement quantitative risk systems and defend decisions, which they may pass on as higher fees or reduced services for customers.
The possibility of treble damages and expanded litigation exposure creates large financial liability for banks and networks, which could raise consumer costs or prompt defensive business changes.
Limiting category-based avoidance and forcing networks/banks to accept customers judged lawful may reduce a private-sector tool to limit illicit activity, potentially raising fraud, compliance, or national-security risks if not paired with effective alternatives.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Conditions access to discount window, deposit insurance, ACH, and card network services on non‑discriminatory, documented, risk‑based treatment of lawful customers and creates private treble‑damages suits for violations.
Requires large banks, credit unions, and payment networks to provide non‑discriminatory access to core financial services for persons who are complying with law, and creates enforcement tools against firms that refuse service. It conditions access to Federal Reserve discount window borrowing, FDIC deposit insurance, ACH entry, and payment‑card network services on impartial, documented, risk‑based denial practices and prohibits category‑wide refusals based on political or reputational judgments. Creates a private right of action with treble damages and attorney’s fees for victims, gives the OCC civil‑penalty authority over payment card networks, and sets a $10 billion consolidated‑asset threshold (with certain cross‑references to existing bank and credit union definitions) for many of the prohibitions and obligations in the bill.