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Comment by rimunroe | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a lawyer and wasn't familiar with the bill until it was brought up in this thread. Looking at the text of the bill I'd guess that it's because the bill specifically calls for making risk determination on an individual basis[1] rather than for broad categories. The worry would be that despite the bill calling for banks to make these determinations based on "quantitative, impartial risk-based standards", this would actually give them more leeway to discriminate in a much more targeted way.

[1] §2.10 https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/401...

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This is a rather paranoid reading of the bill, and I don't think the clause you cite has the effect you describe. For one thing, it's in the "Findings" section, which is not operative statutory text - it's a statement of opinion to describe the authors' state of mind at the time the bill was written. Further, in the scenario you describe - a bank cutting off services after an individualized risk assessment - if the cut-off customer was in compliance with the law, 4(c) causes the bank to lose access to the Fed window, which is basically game over for them. Today, banks can cut off services for nearly any reason with little recourse. If the bill passes, banks will need to be extremely careful when cutting off services to individuals.

I appreciate the thorough response! Again, I'm not a lawyer or even very familiar with it. I looked up the concerns people had, and then tried to find the bit which seemed likely to cause that concern.

I don't know if it sounds likely, and you seem more familiar with this kinda thing than I am, but given the erosion of a bunch of norms I can understand why people would have much less trust in any sort of regulators actually verifying that banks were following the law or their ability to win a lawsuit. Do you know if this would allow private action?

> Do you know if this would allow private action?

Yes - Sec. 8(c) establishes the right of a debanked person to take civil action (and recover attorney's fees) against the offending bank. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/987/...

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