Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) has released a discussion draft of the Ensuring Fair Access to Banking Act, which aims to prevent banks and regulators from denying services to individuals or businesses for political reasons. The proposed legislation establishes a federal fair access standard, enforcement mechanisms, and reforms to how financial institutions are examined and supervised.
“Too often, certain financial institutions or politically motivated regulators have pursued policies that cut off lawful industries they simply don’t like,” said Senator Tillis. “That kind of back-door policymaking undermines transparency, accountability, and Americans’ access to the financial system. This commonsense bill reins in those abuses, strengthens oversight of federal regulators, and restores fair access for legally operating businesses.”
Supporters of the proposal include organizations representing legal advocacy groups, firearms manufacturers, banking industry representatives, digital asset advocates, and venture capital investors.
Brian Knight of Alliance Defending Freedom stated: “Protecting the American people from debanking is essential to preserving our ability to meaningfully exercise our God-given and constitutionally protected rights. To achieve this, politicized debanking must be clearly prohibited, and that prohibition must be backed by adequate enforcement mechanisms. By the same token, banks should not be forced to become public utilities or face needless uncertainty. ADF appreciates Sen. Tillis’s thoughtful balancing of these concerns in his fair access proposal and would encourage support as the bill is prepared for introduction.”
Lawrence G. Keane from the National Shooting Sports Foundation commented: “Financial discrimination continues to be a challenge for the firearm industry. We appreciate Senator Tillis’s leadership to ensure our industry’s access to financial services in the marketplace is unencumbered by political discrimination. While considerable gains have been made by the Trump administration to end this devious practice, Congress has an equally important role to ensure free and fair access to financial services for lawful industries that cannot be reversed with the stroke of a pen by future administrations.”
Erik Rust from Bank Policy Institute said: “Access to banking products and services should not be influenced by politics. Unfortunately, regulatory overreach, supervisory discretion and a maze of overlapping rules have forced banks to choose between legal compliance and reaching more customers. We appreciate Senator Tillis’s hard work on The Ensuring Fair Access to Banking Act of 2025, which admirably seeks to remedy these concerns while still allowing banks to make risk-based business decisions. We are pleased that many of our Fair Access Principles were incorporated into the legislation, including a strong federal preemption provision, which would prevent banks from being forced to comply with multiple state laws that often conflict with each other and federal BSA/AML rules. BPI will continue to work with leaders in Congress and the Administration to ensure all Americans have fair access to the banking services they depend on.”
Summer Mersinger of Blockchain Association noted: “Americans should never be denied access to financial services for exercising their First Amendment rights. Yet, we’ve seen this troubling “debanking” trend impact individuals and organizations across the political spectrum — including those in the digital asset industry. Blockchain Association has long championed efforts to end this discriminatory practice and ensure that the financial system treats lawful businesses and individuals fairly. While recent regulatory efforts to end this pernicious practice are a good start, we look forward to working with Senator Tillis and other lawmakers to codify equal banking access protections for all Americans into law.”
Cody Carbone at The Digital Chamber added: “The Digital Chamber is proud to support Senator Tillis’ Ensuring Fair Access to Banking Act, which would codify a national standard to ensure lawful blockchain and digital asset innovators cannot be debanked based on arbitrary or ideological risk classifications… The bill strengthens transparency, eliminates reputational risk as a supervisory tool, and establishes a clear standard for fair access… Thank you to Senator Tillis for his leadership…”
Nic Carter from Castle Island Ventures stated: “Over the last decade many different groups have been subject waves of politically-motivated debanking… It’s clear that for this end permanent legislative solution must sought… Chiefly responsible inappropriate usage reputational risk supervision as well lack transparency from financial regulatory agencies… This legislation tackles those issues while carefully retaining banks’ freedom serve clients as see fit…”
According to background information provided by Senator Tillis’s office:
– Under previous administrations such as Obama’s Operation Choke Point initiative—and more recently during President Biden’s tenure—industries including firearms retailers or digital asset companies faced restricted banking services due government-led actions.
– Individuals connected with various causes or even high-profile figures like President Trump have also experienced bank account closures attributed allegedly discriminatory practices.
– The new bill proposes replacing varied state regulations with one national framework while keeping necessary safeguards so institutions can manage risks.
– Additional provisions include removing “reputational risk” as justification during bank supervision processes; enhancing examination transparency; increasing Congressional oversight over confidential data; requiring Senate confirmation for Federal Reserve Inspector General; establishing an independent Treasury Department Inspector General; modernizing anti–money laundering reporting thresholds.
Thom Tillis previously won election contests against Cal Cunningham in 2020 (48.7% vs 46.9%) https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/north-carolina/senate/ ,and Kay Hagan in 2014 (48.8% vs 47.3%) https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2014/results/north-carolina-senate-hagan-tillis .
The full text of Senator Tillis’s discussion draft is available online.
