Bank of America

Quick Take

Bank of America spent 2025 at the center of the national fight over debanking. In mid-2025 the bank added explicit language to its Code of Conduct stating that religious views are not a factor in account closings, a change welcomed cautiously by the legal group that had spent two years pressing it.[4] It surfaced publicly in August, the same month Trump's Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans executive order directed regulators to hunt for politicized debanking, and by November the bank disclosed in an SEC filing that it was responding to federal requests about how it drops clients.[5][6] The money tells a different story than the controversy: aggregated organizational giving tracked by OpenSecrets split almost exactly down the middle in the 2024 cycle, $2,000,278 to Democrats against $1,973,367 to Republicans.[7] Federal lobbying ran $2,400,000 in calendar year 2024 and $2,850,000 in 2025.[8][9] The bank's 2018 pledge to stop financing makers of military style rifles for civilian use remains a frequently cited corporate decision in the gun policy debate.[10]

The Ministry in Memphis

The debanking accusations did not start with Trump. They started with a small Christian charity.

Indigenous Advance Ministries, a Memphis based nonprofit that has partnered with Ugandan ministries since 2015 to support orphaned children and fund vocational training, held deposit and credit card accounts at Bank of America from its founding. In April 2023 it received letters saying the bank was closing those accounts within 30 days. The stated reason was that the group was "operating in a business type we have chosen not to service."[11] A follow up letter said the risk profile no longer aligned with the bank's risk tolerance.[12] The accounts of a Memphis church at the ministry's address, Servants of Christ Community, operating as University House of Prayer, were closed as well.[14]

Founder Steve Happ said the closure meant five employees in Uganda waited an extra week to be paid.[11] The ministry's deposit account held about $270,000 at the time.[12]

Months later, after a consumer complaint was filed with Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and national coverage followed, the bank gave a fuller explanation: an affiliated entity engaged in debt collection, a business its small business division does not serve, and it does not serve small businesses operating outside the United States. A spokesperson said religious beliefs are not a factor in any account closing decision.[14] Attorneys for the ministry disputed the account, saying the charity had never engaged in debt collection and that the explanation arrived four months after the fact.[13]

The pressure escalated from there. Ahead of the bank's April 2024 annual meeting, 15 state financial officers from 13 states signed a letter calling on Bank of America to investigate and correct what they described as a pattern of discriminatory debanking, and a separate group of 15 state attorneys general led by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach warned Moynihan that the behavior could invite investigations and litigation.[11] Tennessee legislators moved a bill in March 2024 to bar large banks from politicized debanking.[12]

A Line Added to the Code of Conduct

Bank of America amended its Code of Conduct in late June 2025 to state explicitly that religious views play no part in account closing decisions, following a similar move by JPMorgan Chase in March; the change was first reported in mid-August.[4][15] A bank spokesman framed it as formalizing what had always been true, saying the company received input from stakeholders and agreed it was best to write it down.[15]

Alliance Defending Freedom, which had engaged the bank repeatedly, called it a step in the right direction while saying the bank had further to go to rebuild trust.[4]

On August 7, 2025, between the bank's amendment and its public disclosure, Trump signed an executive order directing federal banking regulators to identify institutions with policies conducive to politicized or unlawful debanking, to take remedial action including fines and consent decrees, and to give previously denied customers a renewed opportunity for service. The order singled out political and religious beliefs along with the digital asset and firearms industries for special scrutiny.[16][5] Regulators had already been stripping reputation risk out of their examination frameworks through 2025.[17]

In its third quarter 10-Q filed in late October 2025, Bank of America disclosed that it was responding to requests and reviewing its practices for providing, maintaining, and discontinuing products and services to specific clients.[6]

Where the Money Actually Goes

Bank of America's federal political giving is tracked by OpenSecrets as an aggregated organizational total that combines its corporate PAC, employee donations of $200 or more, and soft money, and that aggregate has moved toward the middle over three presidential cycles. The 2016 cycle totaled $5,869,508, with 48 percent to Democrats and 52 percent to Republicans. The 2020 cycle totaled $6,993,442, with 51 percent to Democrats and 49 percent to Republicans. The 2024 cycle totaled $4,231,320, of which $2,000,278 went to Democrats and $1,973,367 to Republicans, a 50.3 to 49.7 percent split of the party directed money and the closest of the three presidential cycles shown here.[7]

That near even balance is a recent development. In the 2012 cycle the same aggregate ran 72 percent Republican, and in 2014 it ran 63 percent Republican.[7] Because occupation and employer coding is donor reported and older cycles refresh less often, those earlier figures are best read as floors rather than exact amounts.

The subsets inside the aggregate matter. In the 2024 cycle, $3,308,282 of the total came from individuals and $710,000 from PACs.[7] The corporate committee itself, the Bank of America Corporation Federal PAC, gave $490,000 directly to federal candidates over the 2023 to 2024 cycle and took in 425 large individual contributions.[18][19] The corporate PAC's own party split is not reported in the sources reviewed here, so the percentages above describe the aggregate, not the corporate PAC.

Lobbying is measured by calendar year, not by cycle. Bank of America reported $2,400,000 in federal lobbying for 2024 and $2,850,000 for 2025.[8][9] The bank reported no outside spending in the 2024 cycle.[8]

The Gun Lending Line

In April 2018, two months after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Bank of America vice chairman Anne Finucane said on Bloomberg Television that the bank would stop financing manufacturers of military style rifles sold to civilians. "It's our intention not to finance these military-style firearms for civilian use," she said, describing intense conversations with the affected clients.[10] Reporting at the time identified Remington, Vista Outdoor, and Sturm Ruger among the companies affected.[20]

Finucane drew a line at retailers, saying restricting gun sellers ran into civil liberties and the Second Amendment, and that such a step was a long way off.[21]

The decision has had a long tail. It is routinely cited by gun rights groups as an early example of financial deplatforming, and firearms is now one of the industries the 2025 executive order directs regulators to examine for debanking.[16]

Retreat From the Alliances

The retreats stand out because of how visibly the bank had leaned the other way beforehand. In April 2021 it set a goal of deploying $1 trillion by 2030 through an Environmental Business Initiative, part of a broader $1.5 trillion sustainable finance target and an increase on a $300 billion pledge it had made in 2019.[27] On the social side, it raised a four-year racial equality and economic opportunity commitment to $1.25 billion in 2021 and issued a $2 billion Equality Progress Sustainability Bond.[28] The bank had also lent its name to a partisan flashpoint: in April 2021, after Georgia tightened its voting laws, Bank of America was among the signatories of the We Stand for Democracy statement opposing restrictions on voting access, an ad that ran in national newspapers, while peers including JPMorgan Chase, Coca-Cola, and Delta declined to sign.[29]

Bank of America moved with the rest of the industry as the political climate shifted.

In January 2025, it exited the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, the United Nations convened coalition that committed member banks to aligning lending with net zero emissions by 2050. Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan made the same exit over roughly a month, leaving the alliance without any of the six largest American banks.[22]

The following month, the bank's annual report dropped its diversity language. The 2025 report contained no references to diversity in the employment context, against 12 the year before, and the Diversity Metrics table was replaced by a Workforce data table.[23] Reporting at the time said the bank would also stop setting aspirational representation goals and stop requiring diverse candidate slates, changes attributed to executive orders affecting government contractors, while keeping its internal team and renaming the human resources group to focus on opportunity and inclusion.[24][25] Moynihan described the company as a bank of opportunity that stresses inclusion.[25]

The underlying workforce numbers barely moved. Men and women each accounted for half of employees in both reports, and people of color accounted for 51 percent of employees and 27 percent of top level managers, matching the prior year.[23]

Moynihan's own framing of the debanking dispute has been about regulation rather than politics. At an Economic Club of Washington event in February 2025, he argued the complaints stem from overregulation, and noted the bank serves 70 million consumer clients.[3]

From Bank of Italy to Charlotte

The Bank of America name traces to a San Francisco institution founded in 1904 as the Bank of Italy by Amadeo Giannini, built to serve immigrant customers other banks would not take. The modern company is the result of NationsBank of Charlotte acquiring BankAmerica in 1998 and adopting the Bank of America name, which is why the headquarters sits in North Carolina rather than California.[26]

The bank acquired Merrill Lynch in a deal completed on January 1, 2009, during the financial crisis, and Merrill remains its wealth management and investment banking brand.[26] Brian Moynihan has served as chief executive officer since January 2010 and also chairs the board.[3]

Where to Find Them

Bank of America operates a nationwide branch and ATM network along with online and mobile banking, and serves wealth management clients through Merrill. Account information, branch locations, and rates are at bankofamerica.com.[3]

Footnotes

[1] Amanda Gerut, Fortune, "Trump swings at Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan and JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon at Davos," January 23, 2025. https://www.fortune.com/2025/01/23/trump-davos-bank-of-america-brian-moynihan-jpmorgan-jamie-dimon-debanking-conservatives-andreessen

[2] New York Post via AOL, "Trump rips Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan over conservative debanking scandal," January 2025. https://aol.com/trump-rips-bank-america-ceo-211542424.html

[3] Ebrima Santos Sanneh, American Banker, "Bank of America's Moynihan downplays Trump's Davos jab," February 25, 2025. https://www.americanbanker.com/news/bank-of-americas-moynihan-downplays-trumps-davos-jab

[4] Decision Magazine, "Banks Moving Away from Religious Debanking," August 19, 2025. https://billygraham.org/decision-magazine/articles/banks-moving-away-from-religious-debanking

[5] Latham and Watkins, "President Trump Issues Executive Order on Fair Banking," August 14, 2025. https://www.lw.com/en/insights/president-trump-issues-executive-order-on-fair-banking

[6] Charlotte Business Journal via Yahoo Finance, "Bank of America responds to federal scrutiny following Trump's debanking order," November 4, 2025. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bank-america-responds-federal-scrutiny-162220594.html

[7] OpenSecrets, "Bank of America Profile: Totals," accessed July 29, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/bank-of-america/totals?id=d000000090

[8] OpenSecrets, "Bank of America Profile: Summary," accessed July 29, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/bank-of-america/summary?id=d000000090

[9] OpenSecrets, "Bank of America Lobbying Profile," accessed July 29, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?id=d000000090

[10] Bloomberg via Fortune, "Bank of America Will Stop Lending to Companies Making Assault-Style Guns," April 11, 2018. https://fortune.com/2018/04/11/bank-of-america-guns

[11] Alliance Defending Freedom, "De-banking victim Steve Happ of Indigenous Advance Ministries to Bank of America," April 23, 2024. https://adfmedia.org/press-release/de-banking-victim-steve-happ-indigenous-advance-ministries-bank-america-i-dont-want/

[12] Addie Offereins, WORLD, "Bank of America's bad track of debanking," April 22, 2024. https://wng.org/roundups/bank-of-americas-bad-track-of-debanking-1713809689

[13] The Federalist, "Attorneys Challenge Bank of America's Claims It Doesn't Discriminate Against Conservatives," January 27, 2025. https://thefederalist.com/2025/01/27/attorneys-challenge-bank-of-americas-claims-it-doesnt-discriminate-against-conservatives/

[14] Ian M. Giatti, The Christian Post, "Bank of America closes accounts tied to Christian outreach ministry," August 24, 2023. https://www.christianpost.com/news/bank-of-america-cancels-accounts-for-ugandan-outreach-ministry.html

[15] Paul Chesser, National Legal and Policy Center, "Bank of America Relents on Its Debanking Practices," August 15, 2025. https://nlpc.org/corporate-integrity-project/bank-of-america-relents-on-its-debanking-practices/

[16] Gibson Dunn, "President Trump Issues Executive Order Addressing Politicized or Unlawful Debanking," August 8, 2025. https://www.gibsondunn.com/president-trump-issues-executive-order-addressing-politicized-or-unlawful-debanking/

[17] Stinson LLP, "Executive Order Targeting Politicized or Unlawful Debanking," August 15, 2025. https://www.stinson.com/newsroom-publications-executive-order-targeting-politicized-or-unlawful-debanking

[18] OpenSecrets, "Bank of America PAC Contributions to Federal Candidates," 2024 cycle, accessed July 29, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/bank-of-america/C00364778/candidate-recipients/2024

[19] OpenSecrets, "Bank of America PAC Donors," 2024 cycle, accessed July 29, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/bank-of-america/C00364778/donors/2024

[20] NBC News, "Bank of America stops financing for makers of military style rifles," April 11, 2018. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bank-america-stops-financing-makers-military-style-rifles-n865106

[21] CNN Money, "Bank of America to stop lending to makers of military-style firearms," April 11, 2018. https://money.cnn.com/2018/04/11/news/companies/bank-of-america-guns/index.html

[22] Barchart, "Morgan Stanley, Citi and Bank of America Exit Net Zero Alliance," January 2025. https://www.barchart.com/story/news/30314370/morgan-stanley-citi-and-bank-of-america-exit-net-zero-alliance-whats-next-for-sustainable-finance

[23] WCNC Charlotte, "Bank of America drops diversity language," February 26, 2025. https://www.wcnc.com/article/money/business/bank-of-america-removes-diversity-report/275-f33b72ea-b1c3-4353-a2ef-164388c7acd2

[24] Banking Dive, "BofA, Wells, Truist de-emphasize DEI in annual filings," February 26, 2025. https://www.bankingdive.com/news/bank-of-america-wells-fargo-diversity-equity-dei-trump-truist/741019/

[25] Bloomberg via Insurance Journal, "Bank of America Scraps Diversity Goals in Latest Wall Street DEI Retreat," February 26, 2025. https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2025/02/26/813414.htm

[26] Wikipedia, "Bank of America," accessed July 29, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_America

[27] Bank of America via Business Wire, "Bank of America Increases Environmental Business Initiative Target to $1 Trillion by 2030," April 8, 2021. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210408005484/en/Bank-of-America-Increases-Environmental-Business-Initiative-Target-to-1-Trillion-by-2030

[28] Bank of America via Business Wire, "Bank of America Increases Commitment to Advance Racial Equality and Economic Opportunity to $1.25 Billion," March 30, 2021. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210330005760/en/Bank-of-America-Increases-Commitment-to-Advance-Racial-Equality-and-Economic-Opportunity-to-1.25-Billion

[29] Black Enterprise, "Coca-Cola, Delta, JPMorgan Chase and Walmart Decline to Sign Joint Statement," April 15, 2021. https://www.blackenterprise.com/coca-cola-delta-jpmorganchase-and-walmart-decline-to-sign-joint-statement-opposing-any-discriminatory-legislation/