FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson issued warning letters to the CEOs of four major payment and financial infrastructure providers regarding concerns about debanking law-abiding customers based on political or religious views. The letters remind the companies of their obligations to customers under the FTC Act, warn that inconsistent denials of service could trigger investigations and enforcement, and reference President Trump’s 2025 executive order prohibiting debanking due to political affiliations, religious beliefs, or lawful business activities.
In-house legal teams at financial services, payment processing, and financial infrastructure companies should prioritize reviewing all customer-facing agreements, including merchant services contracts, user terms of service, and account agreements, to audit service termination and denial of access clauses. These clauses must explicitly prohibit debanking or service denial based on customers’ political affiliations, religious beliefs, or lawful business activities, and must align with customers’ reasonable expectations of service access. Teams should also review downstream partnership agreements with banks, card networks, and other financial partners to ban such entities from facilitating debanking of shared customers, and ensure all service termination grounds are clearly defined to prevent inconsistent application. Additionally, references to FTC Act compliance and alignment with relevant executive orders should be updated to reflect the prohibition on viewpoint-based or discriminatory debanking.
Entity
PayPal Holdings, Inc., Stripe, Inc., Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc.
Industry
Financial Services"PayPal, Stripe, Visa and Mastercard"
"paypal-holdings-inc"
"stripe-inc"
"visa-inc"
"mastercard-inc"
"FTC Act"
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$1.9M
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