America’s banks are immensely self-conscious. That is the finding of a report, published recently by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), on the subject of debanking. But for the industry’s insecurities, private firms should not primarily be blamed. It is true that, as the report notes, banks have deprived Americans of financial services, the pattern of such actions being, at times, stochastic. Pervasive regulatory strictures distorted what ought to have been ordinary business decisions, giving banks little choice but to court regulators at the expense of their existing and would-be clientele.
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