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June 4, 2025
Industry Win: Citigroup Drops Discriminatory Firearm Policy
Chalk one up for the firearm industry. Citgroup, one of the largest corporate banking institutions in the nation, announced it is changing its financial services policies that boxed out members of the firearm and ammunition industry.
That’s welcome news, and it is a hard-fought win for which NSSF has been battling for years. Citigroup’s Executive Vice President of Enterprise Services and Public Affairs Ed Skyler wrote in a blog that they finally recognize that the firearm industry has been a leader in responsible firearm ownership and safety all along.
“Many retailers have been following these best practices,” Skyler wrote, “and we hope communities and lawmakers will continue to seek out ways to prevent the tragic consequences of gun violence.”
That’s the same Skyler who announced Citigroup was cutting off financial services to the firearm industry in 2018, in the wake of the tragedy at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Skyler, formerly a deputy mayor to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, announced then that Citigroup would require firearm industry members who wanted to bank with them to agree to not sell a firearm to anyone who hasn’t passed a background check, enact age-based gun bans that unconstitutionally froze law-abiding adults under 21 from lawful firearm purchases and ban the sale of bump stocks and standard-capacity magazines.
To be clear, all firearms sold at retailer require an FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check (NICS) verification. That point-of-sale background check was the firearm industry’s idea. As well, the firearm industry has not adopted any of these other unconstitutional schemes.
Long Road, and Long Road Ahead
It wasn’t just Citigroup. Similar discriminatory policies were adopted by other banking giants, including Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo. NSSF has been a leader in pushing back against these discriminatory policies that originally were rooted in the ill-advised and illegal Operation Choke Point, a scheme hatched under President Barack Obama and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. That scheme weaponized the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) to stop financial institutions from offering services to some regulated industries in an attempt to choke off banking services.
The FDIC included federally licensed firearm retailers and other companies in the firearm and ammunition industry – some of the most heavily regulated businesses in the country – on this list of risky businesses without any evidence or justification. The operation was shuttered in 2017 and subsequently investigated by Congress. After that, it was privatized by corporate banks which discriminated based on “risk assessment” that had no criteria involving creditworthiness.
NSSF fought back and the results were evident to banks. NSSF was successful in passing the Firearm Industry Nondiscrimination (FIND) Act in 11 states, which prohibits state agencies and local government entities from entering into contracts with corporations that discriminate against the firearm industry.
Citigroup was found to be in violation of the Texas FIND Act, enacted in 2021, and barred from competing to underwrite $3.4 billion in state bonds, costing the bank hundreds of millions of dollars in fees.
Similar legislation is pending in Congress. U.S. Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) introduced S. 137, and U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) introduced H.R. 45, both titled the Firearm Industry Nondiscrimination (FIND) Act.
NSSF has also worked closely with Congress to advance the Fair Access to Banking Act, introduced by Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) as S. 401, and Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) introduced H. R. 987 under the same title. The Fair Access to Banking Act would stop corporate banks from picking winners and losers based on executives’ personal politics. The legislation also protects banks from outside pressure by special interest groups seeking to use the banks as a weapon to advance their political agenda.
Voters’ Voice Counts
The pressure came from voters, too. Pro-firearm industry voters turned out for President Donald Trump and he made “debanking” an early priority.
He excoriated Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan while speaking at the World Economic Forum 2025 in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year. His remarks included J.P. Morgan Chase for their discriminatory policies too.
“You and Jamie [J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon] and everybody else, I hope you start opening your banks to conservatives,” President Trump said directly to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan. “What you’re doing is wrong.”
WEF WRECKING BALL: Trump tells Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan that big banks need to stop DEBANKING conservatives pic.twitter.com/gp0sRfwXRM
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) January 23, 2025
NSSF is guardedly optimistic on Citigroup’s announcement. There’s wisdom in President Ronald Reagan’s advice to “trust, but verify.” That’s why NSSF will be watching and checking with our members to see if this is a substantive change in policy or just a superficial change while Citigroup continues to discriminate in private beyond closed doors where it is harder for the public to detect.
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President Trump at World Economic Forum: ‘Stop Debanking Conservative Businesses’
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