Four of America’s largest banks relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center in decisions affecting conservative and religious organizations, according to a newly released federal debanking report.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency report, released Wednesday, details instances involving JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, PNC Bank, and TD Bank, all of which referenced the SPLC while denying loans to organizations or closing their accounts. The SPLC‘s map of hate groups lists some mainstream conservative and Christian groups alongside Klan chapters, due to the groups’ views on marriage, immigration, critical race theory, or opposition to radical Islam.
“No American should be locked out of the banking system for being conservative or Christian,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told the Daily Signal. “Reports that major financial institutions relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s politically motivated labels to deny services to conservatives are deeply troubling and demand answers.”
Critics have long argued that the SPLC’s accusations have real-world consequences—including debanking.
“Most of the time, people are like, ‘It’s not really happening. You’re imagining this,'” Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Jeremy Tedesco told the Daily Signal in an interview Wednesday. “Now we know definitively that it is happening. It was happening at scale.”
The SPLC, which gained its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy in the 1980s, now faces federal criminal fraud charges.
BREAKING
An eye-opening debanking report reveals that several major banks referenced the Southern Poverty Law Center when evaluating customers and making adverse decisions against conservatives.
Here are some examples and why it matters:
1/11 pic.twitter.com/T1jrBzULcw
— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) October 14, 2026
1. JPMorgan
JP Morgan’s subsidiary WePay, an online payment service provider, reportedly used an internal system that screened for a list of terms including “MAGA,” “America First,” and the names of SPLC-designated “hate groups.”
According to the report, WePay closed a conservative legal advocacy group’s account in December 2020, citing associations “with a known hate group” as per the SPLC.
In June 2021, WePay closed the account of a conservative nonprofit, and JPMorgan employees cited the SPLC’s “hate group” label.
In July 2021, WePay closed an account used to raise funds to support a “devout Christian’s” legal challenge to anti-discrimination laws.
JPMorgan did not dispute the report, and told the Daily Signal that it has closed WePay as a stand-alone business.
“A process used by WePay, a small technology company we acquired years ago and have since wound down, did not meet our expectations,” the company stated. “We identified it, corrected it, and the business no longer operates.”
JPMorgan emphasized that the report “discusses a limited number of historical interactions among the nearly 90 million customers and small businesses we serve.”
“We take this seriously, learned from it, and improved the way we do business,” the company stated, noting that its policies prohibit discrimination against customers based on political or religious views.
2. Wells Fargo
The report states that Wells Fargo highlighted a nonprofit’s views on same-sex marriage while reviewing its account. The bank flagged the SPLC, the Anti-Defamation League, and BloodMoney.org as resources for identifying organizations associated with hate, harassment, or abuse. One of Wells Fargo’s business partners terminated the nonprofit’s account.
Wells Fargo declined to comment for this story.
3. PNC Bank
PNC Bank in late 2021 declined to issue a line of credit to a media company due to reputation risk. PNC’s environmental and social governance group cited that one of the company’s owners had a foundation that “funded several Christian conservative groups, including several identified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
One bank employee said, “I think it becomes really difficult to justify aligning ourselves with a company whose owners have built very public personas around opinions very contrary to PNC’s beliefs/values,” according to the report.
The Daily Signal reached out to PNC Bank for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.
4. TD Bank
TD Bank considered extending a Paycheck Protection Program loan for an immigration enforcement nonprofit in February 2021. Yet the bank’s public affairs group rated the nonprofit as high risk, citing the SPLC.
TD Bank prepared talking points explaining the denial, but the nonprofit ultimately withdrew its application because it did not meet PPP requirements.
The bank’s customer talking points stated that the group’s “public statements about immigrants” were “inconsistent with TD’s values.”
The Daily Signal reached out to TD Bank for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.
Congressional Scrutiny
Comer noted that his committee previously launched an investigation into politically motivated debanking and obtained unredacted records from the FDIC.
“We are not slowing down,” he said. “We will continue following the evidence and expose all efforts to weaponize the financial system against Americans.”
Tedesco recommended three steps to prevent debanking: banks should adopt policies against debanking; banks should train their staff on those policies; and banks should limit who has authority to make these decisions.
Tedesco called the OCC report a “watershed moment” because it undercuts the SPLC’s claim that debanking is merely a “conspiracy theory.”
The Daily Signal reached out to the SPLC and the OCC for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.
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[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
