Sec. 2. Findings
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/bill/117/s/563/is/section-2A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
Congress finds that— article I of the Constitution of the United States guarantees the people of the United States the right to enact public policy through the free and fair election of representatives and through the actions of State legislatures and Congress; banks rightly objected to the Operation Choke Point initiative through which certain government agencies pressured banks to cut off access to financial services to lawful sectors of the economy; banks are now, however, increasingly employing subjective, category-based evaluations to deny certain persons access to financial services in response to pressure from advocates from across the political spectrum whose policy objectives are served when banks deny certain customers access to financial services; the privatization of the discriminatory practices underlying Operation Choke Point by banks represents as great a threat to the national economy, national security, and the soundness of banking and financial markets in the United States as Operation Choke Point itself; banks are supported by the United States taxpayers and enjoy significant privileges in the financial system of the United States and should not be permitted to act as de facto regulators or unelected legislators by withholding financial services to otherwise credit worthy businesses based on subjective political reasons, bias or prejudices; banks are not well-equipped to balance risks unrelated to financial exposures and the operations required to deliver financial services; the United States taxpayers came to the aid for large banks during the great recession of 2008 because they were deemed too important to the national economy to be permitted to fail; when a bank predicates the access to financial services of a person on factors or information (such as the lawful products a customer manufactures or sells or the services the customer provides) other than quantitative, impartial risk-based standards, the bank has failed to act consistent with basic principles of sound risk management and failed to provide fair access to financial services; banks have a responsibility to make decisions about whether to provide a person with financial services on the basis of impartial criteria free from prejudice or favoritism; while fair access to financial services does not obligate a bank to offer any particular financial service to the public, or to operate in any particular geographic area, or to provide a service the bank offers to any particular person, it is necessary that— the financial services a bank chooses to offer in the geographic areas in which the bank operates be made available to all customers based on the quantitative, impartial risk-based standards of the bank, and not based on whether the customer is in a particular category of customers; banks assess the risks posed by individual customers on a case-by-case basis, rather than category-based assessment; and banks implement controls to manage relationships commensurate with these risks associated with each customer, not a strategy of total avoidance of particular industries or categories of customers; banks are free to provide or deny financial services to any individual customer, but first, the banks must rely on empirical data that are evaluated consistent with the established, impartial risk-management standards of the bank; and anything less is not prudent risk management and may result in unsafe or unsound practices, denial of fair access to financial services, cancelling, or eliminating certain businesses in society, and have a deleterious effect on national security and the national economy.