Operation Chokepoint
Key Points
- ACA members are committed to robust compliance with state and federal consumer protection laws including the FDCPA and fair treatment of consumers. The debt collection industry is highly regulated at the state level and the federal level by the CFPB, the FTC, and the FCC among other regulators, and the work of the industry has proven beneficial in ensuring consumers can continue to access credit and services.
- There is often little notice and no specific explanation for why the banking relationship is terminated. While the rate of banking terminations has declined, the highly questionable practices of Operation Choke Point continue.
- A recent OCC rule codifies more than a decade of OCC guidance stating that banks should conduct a risk assessment of individual customers, rather than make broad-based decisions affecting whole categories or classes of customers, when provisioning access to services, capital, and credit. ACA encourages other regulators and lawmakers to take similar steps that the OCC has taken.
- Despite the fact that they are highly regulated and their work helps ensure a functioning economy, ACA members have been unfairly targeted by Operation Choke Point and other similar efforts for the past several years.
- In January 2021, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency finalized a Fair Access Rule to ensure industries have access to banking services.
- On numerous occasions since the inception of Operation Choke Point, credit and collection professionals have had their banking relationships abruptly terminated, which has in certain instances threatened the existence of their businesses and their employees’ jobs, since in certain states a license to operate is reliant on having a banking relationship.
- Allowing individuals to pick winners and losers in the financial services marketplace, based on individual unresearched ideologies, is a very dangerous and slippery slope, not just for ACA members but for all Americans.
U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, (R-Mo.) Letter to the FDIC
“Today, we have more compelling evidence that tells the story of intimidation and abuse, and supervisory decisions based not on wrongdoing or risk but on a personal disdain for certain products being offered. As a former examiner, I find it appalling that senior regulators would not only allow but encourage this type of irresponsible behavior.
Licensed, legally-operating U.S. businesses have lost access to financial services space and been forced to close their doors. This has gone on for too long and has eroded the trust Congress and the American people have in your agency.”
The U.S. Office of Comptroller of the Currency
“Nevertheless, some banks continue to employ subjective or category-based evaluations to deny certain persons access to financial services. These banks are often responding to pressure from advocates from across the political spectrum whose policy objectives are served when banks deny certain customers access to financial services. When a bank predicates a person’s access to financial services on factors other than quantitative, impartial risk-based standards, it has failed to act consistent with basic principles of sound risk management and, as explained in greater detail below, failed to provide fair access to financial services.” – 2021 OCC Fair Access to Financial Services Rule