AFFM Applauds U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent’s Leadership in Support of Fair Access to Financial Services

FSOC meeting “underscores the U.S. Treasury’s commitment to ensuring President Trump’s directive to ensure fair access to banking” and need to “allow our free markets to work as intended.”

This week, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent presided over a Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) meeting where the group discussed the latest developments in banking supervision and regulatory reforms in support of President Trump’s executive order (EO) to ensure fair access to financial services for all Americans. 

In response, Americans for Free Markets (AFFM) Executive Director David Ibsen released the following statement:

“This week’s Financial Stability Oversight Council meeting underscores the U.S. Treasury’s commitment to ensuring President Trump’s directive to ensure fair access to banking. This is another positive development toward ending government-driven debanking by making financial regulation fairer, consistent and free from ideological interference. The meetings participants discussed a series of regulatory reforms that would help end unlawful account closures, including the preventing regulators from using vague tools like ‘reputation risk’ to advance an agenda, as well as modernizing outdated laws and regulations, including the Bank Secrecy Act and Anti-Money Laundering laws.”

“The meeting, and Secretary Bessent’s support of rooting out policies that could lead to the weaponization of our financial system comes after other regulatory agencies, like the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Small Business Administration, and others, have announced measures to review and remove guidance that relies on the vague ‘reputation risk’ standard from the regulatory process. Importantly, we must let financial institutions make their own independent decisions and allow our free markets to work as intended.”

“AFFM is encouraged by Secretary Bessent’s continued leadership, and looks forward to working with other regulatory agencies, Congress and the Trump administration to restore fairness and transparency in our financial system so that no Americans are denied access to financial services on the basis of their politics or ideology.”  

Read more about the latest developments from financial regulatory agencies here and in Congress here.