In August 2025, President Trump passed an executive order called Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans. The executive order is designed to stop financial institutions from shuttering or denying accounts to people as a result of their political or religious beliefs or for engaging in lawful business. There have been several thoughtful write-ups about this EO, so if you’re looking for an overview I’d recommend checking out  Perkin’s Coie’s detailed overview with some historical context, Arnold Porter’s analysis, and this post from America’s Credit Unions on how the EO applies to credit unions. To explore some of the legal uncertainties around the EO, check out this analysis from Ballard Spahr. 

This post won’t cover everything in the EO and will instead focus specifically on how this EO intersects with financial censorship. As a reminder, financial censorship refers to when financial companies shutter the accounts of or deny accounts to people or businesses engaged in legal speech. Sometimes financial censorship is prompted by direct or indirect government pressure. Other times, that pressure is indiscernible. Financial censorship is a way of punishing disfavored speakers—pushing them toward silence through financial exclusion, even when the First Amendment would prevent the government from directly or indirectly censoring them. Financial censorship is thus a subset of actions within the larger field of what is referred to as debanking, which can include ending or denying financial services for reasons unrelated to speech. 

The Executive Order’s Impact on Speech

From a speech perspective, there are components of the executive order that are extremely promising, positioning the U.S. government as a proponent of financial neutrality and access while removing harmful language about reputation risk from regulatory guidance. In other ways the EO falls short: failing to safeguard banking access for all those engaged in legal speech and instead narrowly protecting only some financial customers. It’s written with a focus on a one-sided political narrative, which may indicate how it will be interpreted and enforced. Finally, there are a few aspects of the EO that are vague enough to leave questions about how the language will be interpreted. 

The long term impact of the EO on the financial industry may take years to truly understand. Future legislation could address the shortcomings of the EO—or entrench these problems within the law. 

Some of the core aspects of the EO from a civil liberties perspective:

1. Creating the concept of “politicized or unlawful debanking.“

The EO is anchored to the term “politicized or unlawful debanking.” Notably, the “or” is carrying a lot of weight here—seemingly acknowledging that some of the practices the EO is discouraging are not strictly illegal. That’s because it generally isn’t illegal for banks and other financial institutions to end (or decline potential) relationships with customers for a range of reasons, including for speech the clients engage in that the financial institutions find disagreeable. 

Here’s how the executive order defines the term:  Sec. 3.  Definitions.  (a)  The term “politicized or unlawful debanking” refers to an act by a bank, savings association, credit union, or other financial services provider to directly or indirectly adversely restrict access to, or adversely modify the conditions of, accounts, loans, or other banking products or financial services of any customer or potential customer on the basis of the customer’s or potential customer’s political or religious beliefs, or on the basis of the customer’s or potential customer’s lawful business activities that the financial service provider disagrees with or disfavors for political reasons.”

Some things to note here:

First, this concept applies to both existing customers and potential customers, which is great. While most of the instances of financial censorship documented in Transaction Denied describe existing customers having their accounts closed or temporarily suspended, there are also some instances of people being denied accounts due to their speech. That’s why it’s important to capture both existing customers and potential customers in any protections. 

The definition of financial institutions seems to be fairly broad, including “other financial services providers,” which might encompass entities like credit card networks, payment providers, and other intermediaries within the larger payment ecosystem. If so, this approach makes sense; many of the documented cases of financial censorship happen somewhere along the payment ecosystem, like a payment processor, rather than at a bank or credit union. However, it’s unclear whether this is supposed to apply to other entities, like crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe or investment managers. (Note that crowdfunding platforms and investment managers are outside of the research scope of Transaction Denied.)

The type of debanking the executive order is trying to target is debanking that happens on the basis of one’s political or religious beliefs or lawful business activity “that the financial service providers disagrees with or disfavors for political reasons.” It’s possible the “for political reasons” clause at the end may weirdly narrow this provision. For example, would it be OK for a financial service provider to shut off a customer for lawful business activity that it disfavored on moral (rather than political) grounds? 

The biggest concern with this definition is the potential for financial companies to continue speech-based debanking that might fall outside of these three categories (political, religious, or lawful business). For example, what about a student who loses their credit card after writing an op-ed against school policies, if the issue wasn’t precisely religious or political in nature? Or an independent journalist whose payment services are shuttered after she publishes leaked documents on her blog? An overly narrow interpretation of these terms could unfortunately limit the EO’s application. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the EO seems very much inspired by news coverage about right-leaning political activists losing their banking services. While this may have prompted an important conversation about debanking, it is a mistake to focus solely on these examples that fit neatly into a single political narrative. Instead, it would be better to take a values-driven, principled approach to thinking about speech-based financial exclusion and its impact on our democracy. 

2. This Executive Order does not explicitly ban all forms of debanking connected to legal speech.

This shortcoming is connected to the prior point, but it bears highlighting on its own: the EO is very much tied to three specific concepts: religious beliefs, political beliefs, and lawful business activity. This means that the EO isn’t attempting to protect against all debanking stemming from any form of legal and constitutionally protected speech. That’s disappointing, and it’s worth asking who might be left out of this definition. It seems to leave open the possibility that people who express legal sexual speech online (for example by posting boudoir photos of themselves on social media), or people who publish non-political documents that run contrary to powerful interests (for example, people posting politically-neutral medical information online) could still face discrimination from financial services. 

The EO could be strengthened and perhaps made less of a political football itself by including prohibitions against debanking on the basis of lawful, First Amendment protected speech. That’s something that could be addressed in future legislation on this issue. 

3. The Executive Order directs regulators to remove reputational risk from their guiding documents

I consider this the single best part of the EO. It’s worth highlighting and celebrating. While other parts of the EO may be worrisomely vague and overly politicized, this is a clear win for civil liberties advocates. It says:

“Within 180 days of the date of this order, each appropriate Federal banking regulator shall, to the greatest extent permitted by law, remove the use of reputation risk or equivalent concepts that could result in politicized or unlawful debanking, as well as any other considerations that could be used to engage in such debanking, from their guidance documents, manuals, and other materials (other than existing regulations or other materials requiring notice-and-comment rulemaking) used to regulate or examine financial institutions over which they have jurisdiction.”

As a reminder, “reputational risk”  refers to the idea that financial companies like banks could reduce the risk to their organization by distancing themselves from customers that might be seen as negatively impacting the business’s public reputation. This is a vague concept, and it can go beyond ending the financial accounts of those convicted of criminal wrongdoing. 

While reputational risk may sound intangible, it actually found its way into the guidance issued by government regulators. As just one example, the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) referred to reputational risk in its 2019 Comptrollers Handbook, stating: <EXT>Reputation risk is the risk to current or projected financial condition and resilience arising from negative public opinion. . . . The assessment of reputation risk should take into account the bank’s culture, the effectiveness of its problem-escalation processes and rapid-response plans, and its engagement with news media. </EXT>

Because it was included in official guidelines, banks were incentivized to adopt reputation management systems, which often involve using services to monitor the news for references to customers. It was just another way to try to showcase their commitment to compliance and reduce unnecessary ire or scrutiny from the regulators. 

While there are outstanding questions about other parts of the executive order, removing reputational risk from official guidance is an extremely positive development. 

4. The EO directs companies to search for prior instances of unlawful and politicized debanking.

The Small Business Administration is supposed to notify “all financial institutions with which it guarantees loans under its lending programs” that they must review their records to find any examples of clients or potential clients that lost (or were denied access to) services as a result of their political or religious beliefs or lawful business activity. Then the financial institutions must notify those clients about what occurred and tell them that they have the option of re-engaging in that service. 

This is the strangest part of the EO, and perhaps there will be more clarity on this later. But the first question is: how far back are these financial institutions supposed to go in their records looking for these denied customers? A year? Ten? Since the beginning of time?

There’s also some language that seems to cabin this requirement (or at least part of it) to only records where the financial exclusion was in violation of the law:

“within 120 days of the date of this order, identifies all potential clients denied access to payment processing services provided by the financial institution or any subsidiaries through a politicized or unlawful debanking action in violation of a statutory or regulatory requirement under section 7(a) of the Small Business Act or any requirement in a Standard Operating Procedures Manual or Policy Notice related to a program or function of the Office of Capital Access, and provides notice to each victim advising of the denied access and the renewed option to engage in such services previously denied.” (bold added for emphasis)

While this section is unclear, one silver lining here is that “payment processing services” are explicitly identified as an important part of this conversation, not just banks and credit unions. That’s positive, as payment processors and credit card networks can play a key role in financial censorship. 

One challenge that may arise for companies trying to comply with this EO is that it’s quite possible that the financial institutions lumped these types of account closures and denials in with other types of account closures and denials. This could make it hard to run queries to automatically identify those accounts. 

Brian Knight (co-author of Private Policies and Public Power: When Banks Act as Regulators within a Regime of Privilege) said that this executive order is designed to help bring transparency to the financial system:

“Part of what this EO is meant to be is a fact finding operation because banking is so opaque by design. It’s not that the administration is going to punish people for actions that were lawful at the time they were taken, but as we get more transparency and more information, that will help  us as the American people have a debate about what should be legal, what should not be legal. That’s a big part of what I think this EO is trying to accomplish – is feed the democratic process with more information about what do we need to do if anything on the areas that aren’t previously covered.” 

5. The financial regulators are supposed to go after “politicized or unlawful debanking.”

The EO has some strong language about the actions financial regulators must take around politicized and unlawful debanking:

“Within 120 days of the date of this order, each Federal banking regulator shall conduct a review to identify financial institutions subject to its jurisdiction that have had any past or current, formal or informal, policies or practices that require, encourage, or otherwise influence such financial institution to engage in politicized or unlawful debanking and to take appropriate remedial action, to the extent authorized and consistent with applicable law, including levying fines, issuing consent decrees, or imposing other disciplinary measures against any financial institution subject to the jurisdiction of such Federal banking regulator that such Federal banking regulator finds has engaged in politicized or unlawful debanking that violates applicable law (including section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 45), section 1031 of the Consumer Financial Protection Act (12 U.S.C. 5531), and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act).” (emphasis added)

In short, if the banking regulator can find a way to punish a financial institution for engaging in “unlawful or politicized debanking,” then it should. However, as Jake Pearson of ProPublica argues, there may be some significant enforcement challenges because the Trump Administration has also gutted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was working on this issue and was actively collecting complaints from consumers about account closures and other problems with financial institutions.

Overall, this is an interesting position for the government to take. The fact is that prior administrations seemingly encouraged financial exclusion, including by incorporating reputational risk into official guidance and through the much-publicized and extremely contentious Operation Choke Point program. Could this EO be punishing financial institutions today that were adopting financial exclusion programs years ago in an attempt to appease federal regulators? 

If that is the case (and frankly, even if it’s not the case), then hopefully this can be a wakeup call for financial institutions everywhere: administrations and their priorities can and will shift over time, and prior policies can be questioned and criticized with those political shifts. That’s why it’s important to consider the larger, ethical questions around financial exclusion, especially in cases involving legal speech. 

The human rights and civil liberties community has united around the idea of infrastructure providers serving as neutral intermediaries, not content police. And those groups have specifically discussed how payment pathways are part of the tech stack that can be vulnerable to pressure in ways that undermine human rights. 

It’s vital that financial institutions look beyond shifting political winds and consider core human rights issues when considering whether to adopt policies that might punish certain disfavored speakers. 

6. The EO has strong language about financial access, but leaves open questions about even-handed enforcement.

While imperfect, the executive order does have some powerful language against financial exclusion, stating: 

“It is the policy of the United States that no American should be denied access to financial services because of their constitutionally or statutorily protected beliefs, affiliations, or political views, and to ensure that politicized or unlawful debanking is not used as a tool to inhibit such beliefs, affiliations, or political views.  Banking decisions must instead be made on the basis of individualized, objective, and risk-based analyses.”

That’s fairly strong language (though again, it doesn’t specifically hinge on legal speech), and it perhaps shows a new approach to financial access. The idea seems to be that financial organizations shouldn’t be in the business of punishing and excluding law-abiding clients for vague, possibly political reasons. Instead, individuals and businesses should be assessed on their own merit using factors such as their credit worthiness, history of fraud, and financial resources. 

If we believe that a good portion of financial censorship occurs because banks are trying to appease government interests—including by erring on the side of caution and reading into implied government positions—then the government simply changing its own position could go a long way to reducing financial censorship, regardless of how other parts of the EO are interpreted and enforced. So, while far from perfect and with a one-sided political slant, the EO does offer a significant step toward more inclusive and neutral financial services. 

That said, we won’t really know the effects of this executive order until we see how it is implemented, and some experts have already raised concerns. Jason Mikuna (Founder and Publisher, Fintech Business Weekly) asked whether the EO would be fairly applied during an episode of Consumer Finance Monitor. He said: 

“I think to have a meaningful discussion of whether the executive order is good or bad policy is predicated on the idea that it will be impartially and evenhandedly implemented. I think we have ample anecdotal evidence, including within the EO itself, that we should be skeptical that that is the case. The EO explicitly references what it describes as “government directed surveillance” targeting persons participating in activities and causes commonly associated with conservatism and the political right following the events that happened at the US Capitol on January 6th. Further, in light of the events of the last couple of weeks with the administration explicitly saying that it intends to target Democrat-aligned organizations that some members of the administration are now describing as extremist groups and even “domestic terror” networks, I would argue that there is a legitimate reason to be concerned that the executive order, to the extent it’s even grounded in law, won’t in fact be applied consistently across political, religious, and other affiliations.”

This is an important point that should be part of any tech policy conversation, not just those involving debanking: regardless of the intention of a particular policy, so much of the real impact comes down to implementation and regulatory priorities.

Transaction Denied Available for Pre-Order

Transaction Denied: Big Finance’s Power to Punish Speech is now available for pre-order. It’s a great way to learn about many of the concepts connecting lawful speech to financial access, and it delves into the stories of people who lost their financial services as well as the laws and corporate policies surrounding this practice. Also, pre-ordering a book is the single best way to support a new author. 

Here are three ways to order:

1. Use this link to order from Bookshop.org and a portion of the proceeds will go to support an amazing bookstore in Stratford, CT called Obodo Serendipity Books.

2. Order from Amazon.

3. Order from Barnes and Noble.

You can also contact your local bookstore to get a copy on order.

Regardless of where you order the book from, a portion of the book sales will go to benefit the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation.

I recently received the first physical copy of my book—an uncorrected proof showing the layout and cover—and finally had the chance to thumb through it. Seeing the book in physical form sent me back to the beginning of the project.

I initially started collecting the stories in this book believing I was writing a whitepaper I would publish at EFF. At the time, I was working on a set of case studies and industry best practices—something I loosely thought of as a code of conduct for payment processors. When I left EFF, I took those notes and early drafts with me and quickly realized I didn’t have a whitepaper on my hands after all. I had a book.

One of the most complicated parts of writing the book came after I turned in the manuscript: deciding whether or not to update it. The book was finished in November 2024. By “finished,” I mean that I completed the manuscript in September, then spent October fact-checking interviews, having the text reviewed by a financial attorney and a First Amendment attorney, receiving detailed feedback from four beta readers, and integrating all of those changes into the version I submitted to my editor. Although there would be additional rounds of editing afterward, the substance of the book was complete by September and fully locked in by November.

That timing matters. When I wrote the book, I didn’t know who the next U.S. president would be. President Trump was elected just days before I submitted the manuscript and would not be inaugurated for months.

There is also a long gap—about a year and a half—between when I submitted the manuscript and when the book will arrive in bookstores. Since turning the book in, I have wrestled with whether I should update it to reflect the changing political situation in the United States.

In the end, I decided to let the book stand as it was, for a few reasons.

First, I didn’t know what President Trump would do on issues of financial censorship. When he took office, it was unclear whether his administration would move toward greater neutrality in financial systems, dismantle regulators like the CFPB, or largely ignore the issue altogether. I didn’t want to make sweeping updates based on policies that were still emerging and might look outdated by the time the book was published.

Second, I don’t trust that we’ll understand the real impact of new policies right away. This is something I’ve learned from working on tech policy more broadly: often it takes years—and sometimes a whistleblower, a court case, or both—before the consequences of a policy change become clear.

Third, I didn’t want to get stuck in an update loop. Delaying the book to make changes, then delaying it again as new developments unfolded, felt like a recipe for never publishing at all. And if I were going to revise the book, I would want to review everything, not just patch one section, which would effectively mean starting another full round of fact-checking and review.

Finally, the book is written to be as evergreen as possible. The personal accounts of people losing access to financial services are meant to illuminate larger issues of financial access, speech, and inclusion in society. The focus is on those enduring questions, not on tracking every policy shift or regulatory update as it happens.

For all of these reasons, I chose not to update the book to reflect policy changes that occurred after the manuscript was submitted. Instead, I’ll use this blog to analyze and reflect on the most important developments in the areas I’m following. A blog has a flexibility that a published book doesn’t—especially given the long lead time between finishing a manuscript and seeing it on shelves.

If you’d like to follow those updates, visit https://financialcensorship.org and join the mailing list.

My new book, Transaction Denied: Big Finance’s Power to Punish Speech, is available for pre-order today.

Here are three ways to order:

1. Use this link to order from Bookshop.org and a portion of the proceeds will go to support an amazing bookstore in Stratford, CT called Obodo Serendipity Books.

2. Order from Amazon.

3. Order from Barnes and Noble.

You can also contact your local bookstore to get a copy on order.

Regardless of where you order the book from, a portion of the book sales will go to benefit the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Pre-ordering books is one of best ways to support an author. Strong pre-sales lead to more promotional opportunities, more book events, more media interest, and then more book sales. This becomes a flywheel effect: the more attention your book gets early on, the more opportunities it has to get attention later. So please pre-order the book on any platform you would like. There will be an audiobook at launch, too.

Transaction Denied delves into a key issue that has gotten a lot of attention lately: what does it mean to have a financial system that is not speech neutral? I talk about how financial companies have byzantine terms that give them vast power to cut off the accounts of speakers on a whim. And, it’s not those in power who are losing access to the financial system. Those who are otherwise denied power in our society suffer the most from this sort of censorship.

The book is full interviews with people who lost their financial accounts because of otherwise legal speech. Between those stories, I talk about the laws, regulations, and corporate policies that created this system, and some of the key court battles that have left us in a state where financial companies have so much power to punish disfavored speakers.

The more I worked on the book, the more I realized this wasn’t just a book about speech and money—it’s about democracy. It’s about whether financial corporations should have the right to control which speakers are punished, and it’s about who can freely participate in our society. And those choices impact all of us.

Please pre-order today and please share the word on social media. If you’re interested in hosting a book event (in person or on Zoom), please let me know.

We are seeking stories from software developers and software projects that have lost access to financial services. This can include being cut off from a payment service like Stripe or PayPal, having credit card accounts canceled, having bank accounts canceled, or having transactions blocked. We are interested in stories of ongoing problems as well as temporary issues you were able to resolve. 

We are especially interested in free software projects, but we’d like to hear your experiences even if you are part of a proprietary software project.

If you have a story to share, please email research@financialcensorship.org and tell us about what happened, or use our contact page.

These stories are part of a research project about how the policies of financial companies undermine free speech. Computer code is a form of speech, and if your software project is getting wrongly shut down by financial companies, we want to hear about it. If your story seems like a good fit for this research project, we will ask you to schedule an interview and ask for some kind of proof about what happened to you, such as screenshots. Stories can be pseudonymized upon request.

Why this matters

Financial companies have a heavy hand in supporting or undermining speech online. When companies like Chase, Visa, and PayPal shutter accounts and block transactions, it can have a devastating impact for the targeted organizations. Software developers and software projects are often wrongly swept up in overbroad terms of service and misinterpretations of financial law. We want to tell that story to educate the public and regulators about how financial companies are harming the free software movement. 

Outputs

This project will produce a nonfiction book about censorship through financial exclusion, a website that includes stories as well as policy recommendations, and several short articles describing instances of financial censorship. This is an independent research project. The primary researcher is Rainey Reitman, a writer and civil liberties activist. Learn more.

Even if you don’t have a story to share, you can support this project by spreading the word to software development communities. 

To learn more about the research project, visit https://financialcensorship.org

We’ll be hosting a convening for civil society members around financial censorship in October 2023. We’ll be bringing in legal experts and advocates from across the United States who have worked on areas of financial censorship.

The purpose of this convening is to get feedback on a series of draft proposals around addressing financial censorship. This will include feedback on regulatory interventions, proposed best practices for the financial industry, proposed guidance for civil society members looking to engage on this issue, and a discussion of the alternatives to using traditional banking and payment services.

The feedback provided by participants will be used to refine and update proposed guidance before its publication. The finished recommendations will be published on this website and in a forthcoming book.

If you would like to be invited to this convening, please email reitman@financialcensorship.org. Please note that the convening will have limited space, but advocates can also provide feedback over email.

Photo: CC BY 2.0 by woodleywonderworks

We are seeking the stories of individual sex workers, sex workers advocates, and sex worker-connected people and organizations that have lost access to any type of financial service or been denied financial services. 

We are specifically looking for people and organizations that lost access to financial services when it was unrelated to suspected fraud or credit worthiness. For example, if you are a sex worker and had your PayPal account frozen, even if you have used it the same way you have before, please share your story. If you are the spouse of a sex worker and you applied for a bank account and were turned down for no reason, please share your story. If you engage in advocacy around sex worker rights and had your organization’s Stripe account shuttered, please share your story. If you aren’t sure if your story is a good fit, feel free to email us at research@financialcensorship.org and we can discuss it.

Account closures could be in any type of financial service, such as a credit card account, Paypal account, Venmo account, Stripe account, banking services, or any other financial service. If this has happened to you, please share your story by emailing research@financialcensorship.org

We are looking for about three stories we can feature in a book about financial censorship and potentially on a website connected to the book. The book will track the impact of financial censorship on communities, websites, organizations, and individuals. We are investigating how banks like Chase, payment intermediaries like Paypal and Square, and credit card companies like Visa and MasterCard shut off the accounts of people and organizations without legal process, effectively censoring them. We will include stories from many different people and organizations, including investigative journalists, political activists, free software developers, sex workers, and booksellers. 

The project will include personal stories, a legal analysis, and policy proposals, thus creating a vital and unique resource for policymakers, the media, and the general public.

Why you might want to do this

Sharing your story can help make a big difference!

This project will help shape public opinion, provide resources to investigators and the media, and inform policy makers. The hope is that this project will spur public outrage and media involvement, and may prompt legislators and regulators to investigate the issue and ideally ensure that financial companies have more accountability and transparency around how and when they deny services.

Long term, the project may help result in changes to the law so that financial companies have to serve everyone equally, including sex workers and sex worker advocates. By sharing your story, you’ll help make this fight personal and relatable. 

Compensation

We understand that taking time to do an interview can be burdensome, and so we are offering $100 per completed interview. If you prefer to contribute your story as a volunteer, you may waive compensation.

How to share your story

If you are a sex worker, sex worker advocate, or work with a sex worker-connected organization that suffered from financial censorship, please email research@financialcensorship.org and tell us a little bit about what happened. We will ask a few questions over email to see if it is a good fit for our project. If it seems relevant to our research, we’ll schedule a time to interview you. 

Interviews typically last about an hour and a half. Interviews typically include: 

• Telling us about yourself, your background and history; 
• Telling us about having your accounts closed or denied, and whether you were provided an explanation;
• Explaining what losing access to financial accounts felt like to you;
• Describing any hardship you may have suffered as a result of losing financial accounts; and 
• Describing how you coped after losing your financial accounts.

If you have any documentation about your account closure or denial, we will request to see that as well.  We will need some form of evidence that you lost access to your account or were denied a financial service.

Note: If you prefer not to use your real name in this project, let us know and we will substitute a pseudonym into the written version.

Photo Credit: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 by Sally T. Buck

The purpose of this project is to examine how limiting access to financial services impacts political advocacy, journalism, companies, and community groups, and to explore whether these limitations are in line with the values of an open society. Some of the areas of this investigation include financial exclusion that impacts:

• Journalistic organizations and whistleblower websites
• Sexual speech and sex worker advocacy
• New and emerging business models
• Political speech and advocacy
• Internet freedom tools
• Muslim community members

The finished project will include interviews with people and companies that have faced account closures, an analysis of the legal framework and some of the ongoing litigation over these issues, and a discussion of relevant consumer protection law.

This project acknowledges the complex and often conflicting pressures facing financial service providers navigating issues of controversial speech. The purpose of this project is not to offer a one-size-fits-all approach to addressing these issues, but rather to highlight these challenges and offer new lenses for viewing these challenges.

Finally, this research project will explore different tools for addressing the harms of financial exclusion, including best practices for financial services, considerations for regulators, technological alternatives to existing payment structures, and advocacy tools that have proven useful.

Seeking stories

This project is currently seeking examples of individuals and companies who have had their financial services limited or shut down and believe it is a result of their speech, political activities, beliefs, demographics, business models, or for other reasons other than suspected fraud. If this has happened to you, please get in touch by emailing research@financialcensorship.org.

If this has not happened to you, you can still support this project by telling your networks about this project.

Seeking support

If you are a foundation, individual, or organization looking to offer resources to support this project, please email research@financialcensorship.org.

Photo credit: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 by Wayan Vota.