Citigroup reverses firearms policy after pressure from Trump administration on big banks
By Ramishah Maruf, CNN
New York (CNN) — A month after the 2018 mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida, Citigroup enacted restrictions for its clients that sold firearms — the first major bank on Wall Street to do so.
On Tuesday, the bank rolled back that policy.
“We also will no longer have a specific policy as it relates to firearms,” the company said in a statement Tuesday. “The policy was intended to promote the adoption of best sales practices as prudent risk management and didn’t address the manufacturing of firearms.”
The decision comes as the Trump administration alleges that Wall Street is biased against conservatives — a right-wing talking point since more than a dozen state auditors accused Bank of America of “politicized de-banking” in an open letter last year (de-banking is when a bank closes an account for a customer it deems high risk). At the time, Bank of America said it has “no political litmus test.”
On Tuesday, Citi said it was “following regulatory developments, recent Executive Orders and federal legislation.”
In 2018, Citi said it would ban banking services to businesses that sold firearms to those under 21, those who didn’t pass a background check, or sold bump stocks (used by the gunman in the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas) or high-capacity magazines. The policy applied to small businesses, commercial and institutional clients, and credit card partners, but did not restrict how individual customers used their cards.
Big banks have recently caught the ire of the president as well as the crypto industry. In January at the annual World Economic Forum, President Donald Trump scolded Brian Moynihan, the CEO of Bank of America.
“You’ve done a fantastic job, but I hope you start opening your bank to conservatives, because many conservatives complain that the banks are not allowing them to do business within the bank,” Trump said. “You and Jamie and everybody… What you’re doing is wrong,” referring to JPMorgan Chase head Jamie Dimon.
Citigroup also announced on Tuesday that it will update its employee Code of Conduct and its external Global Financial Access Policy “to clearly state that we do not discriminate on the basis of political affiliation in the same way we are clear that we do not discriminate on the basis of other traits such as race and religion.”
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