Tag: banks

Operation Choke Point 2.0: How The Feds Are Seeking To ‘Debank’ Targeted Industries

A federal initiative that began during the Obama administration with the goal of debanking certain industries disfavored by federal officials has apparently been resurrected and is taking aim at cryptocurrencies.

Operation Choke Point was started by the U.S. Dept. of Justice in 2013 as a way to put pressure on banks to sever their ties, without due process, with legal businesses like gun dealers, cannabis dispensaries and payday lenders which the administration found objectionable.

That initiative was ended by President Trump in 2017 but under the Biden administration, it appears that Operation Choke Point 2.0 has begun with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) sending letters to U.S. banks in 2022, urging them to “pause all crypto-related activity.”

Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) told Fox Business that the regulatory abuse is real and that President-elect Trump will put an end to this type of regulatory abuse.

Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen recently described the practice of debanking as “a privatized sanctions regime” on The Joe Rogan Experience, saying, “There’s no rules, there’s no court, there’s no decision process, there’s no appeal. Who do you go to to get your bank account back?”

And if the tune of Operation Choke Point 2.0 sounds familiar, there are also familiar faces as well.

Palmetto State News reports that Michael Eakes is the founder of the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) and Self-Help Credit Union, which operates five credit unions in South Carolina and was also an inaugural member of the FDIC’s Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion when it was started in 2006.

Another member of the advisory committee is Michael Calhoun who is president of the Center for Responsible Lending and a former employee of Self-Help Credit Union.

Keep reading

Texas AG Ken Paxton Reveals Multiple Instances of Debanking Amid Political and Legal Challenges

Texas Attorney-General Ken Paxton has spoken at a Turning Point USA event to detail a series of unjust obstacles he has been facing since taking office, one of those being debanking.

According to Paxton, as many as four different banks denied him their services, which was followed by a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit, attempts to revoke his law license, and an FBI investigation.

This was happening during the last four years of the Biden-Harris Democrat administration, suggesting that the reasons were political, but it went all the way to “a Republican split”: while the state House tried to impeach Paxton – the Senate later acquitted him in the impeachment trial.

The takeaway here is that democratic norms and the principle of due process are at this point considerably compromised and highly vulnerable to political influence.

And Paxton is by no means the only high-profile individual to become the target of debanking. When the new administration took over after President Trump’s first term in office, his wife Melania, and son Barron were denied banking services.

Keep reading

Printing Power: The Central Bank And The State

“Printing Power” in our title has a double meaning: It can mean “printing power”—the power to print money, which central banks have. But we will focus on “printing power”—the central bank’s money printing as an essential source of the power of the state, including of course the Federal Reserve’s printing to promote the power of the United States government. 

The Fed is good at literal printing, exercising its monopoly of currency issuance granted by the government. It has outstanding $2.3 trillion in pure paper money circulating around the world, of which perhaps 45 percent, or more than $1 trillion, is held abroad. All the currency represents zero-interest-rate financing of the Fed and the US government. With interest rates currently at 5 percent, this means a potential profit of $115 billion a year for them by the Fed’s having issued the currency. 

The Fed is also good at metaphorical printing, which is simply entering credits on the deposit accounts of banks in its own books. The Fed thereby creates money which it can use to buy the debt securities of the Treasury, or, in other words, to lend the printed money to the government. The Fed now has $4.1 trillion in deposits. 

All together then, as of October 2024, there is $6.4 trillion in currency and deposits used to finance the American state’s programs, payroll, interventions, subsidies, and wars. The Fed can and does use its buying power to keep the interest cost of the government’s debt lower than it would otherwise be. At peak Fed, in March 2022, the Fed owned $8.4 trillion in Treasury debt and government mortgage securities. 

Because the central bank prints power for the state, virtually all governments want and have one. 

Keep reading

Following Kuwait, Vietnam to De-Bank People Who Do Not Get Their Biometrics Scanned for Digital ID App

Bank accounts in Vietnam will have their online transactions halted and the transfer and withdraw of cash at ATMs blocked beginning January 1, 2025 if the account holder fails to register their biometrics (fingerprints and facial recognition) under regulations from the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) and Vietnamese law. A similar move in Kuwait will de-bank those who fail to get fingerprinted by the start of the new year as well.

“From January 1, 2025, bank accounts that have not been reconciled or updated with biometrics will have their online transactions stopped. This is the reason why banks are simultaneously implementing programs to encourage customers to update their biometrics,” Vietnam Law Newspaper said Thursday. “Updating biometric information and identification documents is now mandatory for customers based on important regulations of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) and current laws. According to Decision 2345/QD-NHNN, SBV has required that from July 1, 2024, some types of online transactions of individual customers must be authenticated by biometric identification.”

The smartphone application is being expanded into what is described as a ‘super app’, a one-stop-shop for digital biometric identification, internet ID, medical ID and perhaps, in the future, a social credit score control grid.

“VNeID, short for Vietnam Electronic Identification, integrates various features across multiple sectors and is expected to become a national super application for digital transformation,” Tuoitre News said Saturday.

Importantly and perhaps alarmingly, the app was developed on the foundation of a vaccine passport during the Covid pandemic.

“Developed by the Ministry of Public Security’s National Center for Population Database in September 2019, VNeID, a mobile application, was built to check health and travel declarations amid the COVID-19 outbreaks,” Tuoitre News said Saturday.

There’s a carrot and stick approach to the move as well. While those who do not submit to biometric scans of their fingers and faces will be financially shut down, those who submitted their scans may earn financial rewards and prizes.

“…some banks have ‘rewarded’ customers who successfully update their biometrics. Specifically, MSB gives a 50.000 e-voucher to customers’ accounts after successfully updating from 4/12. This program applies to the list of customers who have not updated their biometrics as of 30/11. In total, there are 10.000 e-vouchers with a total value of up to 500 million VND for customers who do,” Vietnam Law Newspaper said Thursday. “Techcombank also applies a program to give 50.000 Techcombank Rewards points to the first 6.000 customers who update their biometrics each week, until the end of December 31, 2024.”

Getting one’s biometrics scanned by certain dates even allows one the possibility of winning an iPhone, a device which, not surprisingly, can run the digital ID app the biometrics are linked to.

“VPBank also launched a gift program for customers who complete the biometric data update before January 23, 2025, with a total gift value of up to nearly 7 billion VND. Accordingly, each customer who successfully authenticates biometric data and updates new identification documents on both the VPBank app or at the VPBank transaction counter will receive a code to participate in the weekly lucky draw, the special gift is an iPhone 1 Promax worth 16 million VND/unit. The bank also gives a cashback e-voucher code worth 35 VND to all customers who successfully update biometrics and identification documents,” Vietnam Law Newspaper said Thursday. “Agribank also implements a similar program when customers collect biometrics on the Agribank app will have the opportunity to receive iPhone 16 and many other gifts. BIDV decided to give away 130.000 VND (including 30.000 VND in transfer money and 100.000 VND in discount vouchers for movie watching, taxi calling, and shopping services on the BIDV app) if customers register and complete authentication. BIDV said that this program will be continuously deployed to December 29, 2024, applicable to the 10.000 customers who install biometrics the earliest each week.”

Keep reading

Kuwait to De-Bank People Who Do Not Get Fingerprinted

Kuwait’s Ministry of Interior announced Wednesday that all citizens and expatriates must book a biometric fingerprinting appointment before December 31, 2024 or face being blocked from using their bank accounts or access government services.

“A biometric fingerprinting appointment must be booked before the specified deadline via the ‘Meta’ platform or the ‘Sahl’ app to avoid the suspension of governmental and banking transactions,” the government announcement said in a social media post Wednesday.

The December warning was not the first one given by the Kuwaiti government, back in September they issued a similar announcement, stating those who did not submit to fingerprinting were to be de-banked by September 30, but even that date was an extension to the measure, according to Times Kuwait in September.

At that time it was only Kuwaiti citizens that had the September 30 deadline, while expatriates had until December 30. Now, based on Wednesday’s announcement, it appears as though both groups have until December 31.

Keep reading

Bank of England announces it will keep the names of non-bank financial institutions it bails out a secret

On Monday, the Bank of England announced it will hide the identities of any pension funds, insurers or hedge funds bailed out to avoid the stigma.  This new policy of secrecy to protect banks’ identity will begin in 2025 when the central bank launches its Contingent NBFI Repo Facility.

Also in 2025, the final parts of Basel III will be implemented.  Basel III introduces bail-ins, where account holders rather than the government bail out a failing bank.

But that’s not all. In the “second half of this decade,” i.e. any time from 2025, is “the earliest” the Bank of England would issue a central bank digital currency.

In the past, wars and oil embargoes have been used to justify implementing new global financial systems.  Could we be seeing signs they are preparing for a crisis that they won’t let go to waste?

Keep reading

There’s More… House Judiciary GOP Releases Damning Report on How the Biden’s Federal Government Weaponized the ‘Bank Secrecy Act’ to Spy on Americans

In a damning new report released by the House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, Republicans claim the federal government has transformed the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) into a tool for spying on Americans.

The Gateway Pundit first reported on this investigation on Monday.

The report alleges that federal law enforcement agencies under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, including the FBI, have turned financial institutions into de facto arms of the government, bypassing legal safeguards to obtain sensitive financial data.

Using Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) and Currency Transaction Reports (CTRs), federal agencies have accessed millions of financial records without probable cause or warrants.

The GOP-led investigation found that millions of these reports are filed annually, with nearly 4.6 million SARs submitted in 2023 alone.

What’s more alarming is the scope of access. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) allows over 25,000 government officials to access sensitive financial data without a warrant.

Documents uncovered by the committee show that, in 2023, federal agencies ran over 3.3 million searches in FinCEN’s database—equivalent to 9,000 warrantless searches per day.

Keep reading

GOP Leaders Blocked Schumer’s Push To Include Marijuana Banking Reform In Government Funding Bill, Senate Source Says

Republican House and Senate leadership “openly and solely blocked” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) attempt to include bipartisan marijuana banking legislation in a government funding bill, a Senate source familiar with the negotiations tells Marijuana Moment.

As bicameral lawmakers have worked to put together a continuing resolution to keep the government funded, Schumer repeatedly urged colleagues across the aisle to incorporate the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act, to no avail. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) killed that prospective deal, the source said.

“Schumer pushed for SAFER Banking at the negotiation table in the CR multiple times. This week, both Speaker Johnson and Leader McConnell strongly rejected it,” they said. “For years some Republicans have done a dance telling marijuana businesses that they supported SAFER, while Republican leadership has openly and solely blocked it at every turn.”

Marijuana Moment reached out to Johnson’s and McConnell’s offices for comment, but representatives were not immediately available.

The majority leader said following the election that he remained committed to moving the SAFER Banking Act during the lame duck session, and that he was eyeing the must-pass stopgap funding legislation to get that done.

Schumer could in theory still put the cannabis banking bill on the floor for Senate consideration as a standalone measure. But even if it did pass with the steep 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster in the chamber, the thinking is that it wouldn’t be worth the effort considering Johnson’s obstinance and unlikeliness to bring it to a vote in the House, the Senate source said.

Last month, Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), the GOP lead sponsor of the SAFER Banking Act, told Politico that he wanted to see the measure “get done before the end of the year.” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) separately said he’s “hoping to get something done” on cannabis banking through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), but that prospect is similarly in doubt.

Notably, a Republican senator, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), told AskAPol that he considers the SAFER Banking Act a “half-assed” measure that should simply be incorporated into legislation to create a comprehensive federal regulatory framework for marijuana.

Getting the banking reform enacted during the lame duck could be pivotal following last month’s election that put Republicans back in the Senate majority at the same time that they held onto the House. Sen. John Thune (R-SD) was elected by his peers to serve as majority leader, and he’s opposed to the cannabis banking bill, further complicating its pathway to passage under the next Congress.

Keep reading

FinTech CEOs Expose How Feds Colluded In ‘Debanking’ Schemes After Andreessen ‘Opened The Floodgates’ On Rogan

Last week Marc Andreessen sat down with Joe Rogan for three hours, where the billionaire investor and founder of VC firm Andreessen Horowitz dropped an aerial bombardment of redpills on the general public – spanning everything from the US government’s designs to completely control AI, to a weaponized government effort to secretly ‘debank’ 30 tech founders in an effort to destroy political opponents, particularly those in crypto.

Following the interview, former PayPal president, Facebook executive, and Coinbase board member (2017-2018) David Marcus revealed on Friday how political pressure and red tape led to the demise of Facebook’s cryptocurrency project, Libra (later rebranded as Diem).

Libra was an advanced blockchain paired with a stablecoin aimed at solving global payment inefficiencies at scale. Despite extensive efforts to address regulatory concerns, including financial crime prevention, reserve management, and consumer protections, the project was ultimately derailed—not by legal obstacles but by political opposition.

“Prior to announcing the project, we spent months briefing key regulators in DC and abroad. We then announced the project in June 2019 alongside 28 companies. Two weeks later, I was called to testify in front of both the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee, which was the starting point of two years of nonstop work and changes to appease lawmakers and regulators,” Marcus writes on X.

According to Marcus, the turning point came in 2021 after having “addressed every last possible regulatory concern across financial crime, money laundering, consumer protection, reserve management, buffers, and so much more” in advance of launch. 

Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell appeared ready to greenlight a limited pilot of the project, but Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen allegedly intervened. In a private meeting, Yellen reportedly warned Powell that supporting Libra would be “political suicide,” a move that Marcus describes as the definitive blow. Shortly thereafter, Federal Reserve representatives discouraged participating banks from moving forward, effectively intimidating the financial institutions into withdrawing their support. For Marcus, this marked not just the end of Libra but also a disheartening realization about the political dynamics within the U.S. financial system.

“Shortly thereafter, the Fed organized calls with all the participating banks, and the Fed’s general counsel read a prepared statement to each of them, saying: “We can’t stop you from moving forward and launching, but we are not comfortable with you doing so.” And just like that, it was over.” -David Marcus

Marcus emphasized that there was “no legal or regulatory angle left for the government or regulators to kill the project. It was 100% a political kill—one that was executed through intimidation of captive banking institutions.”

Keep reading

After World Bank “Misplaces” Up to $41 Billion in Funds, Biden Pledges Record $4 Billion More in U.S. Taxpayer Dollars

In just a few weeks, Joe Biden will fade into obscurity and will no longer have access to America’s checkbook. He is making sure that, before that happens, he is spreading American taxpayer’s dollars all over the world.

Although Biden wandered aimlessly at the G20 Summit in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, causing concern when he missed the “family picture” with world leaders, he had enough of a hold on his faculties to pledge a record $4 billion dollars to the World Bank.

The pledge is a 14.3% increase from 2021. However, approval will depend on Congress after President Trump returns to the White House.

The announcement comes despite the fact that the DC-based international lender’s “poor recording keeping” has resulted in anywhere between $24 billion and $41 billion in misplaced funds.

During his remarks, Biden said, “It seems to me there are certain key steps.  First, we need to invest at a large scale. Now, we need to make sure the World Bank can continue its work in the most vulnerable countries.”

“I’m proud to announce the United States is pledging $4 billion over the next three years to the World Bank International Development Association.

Keep reading