Treasury Secretary Bessent Confirms Executive Order Mandating Banks Collect Customer Citizenship Data Is 'In Process'

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has confirmed that an executive order requiring U.S. banks to collect citizenship information from their customers is actively being developed. In an interview with Semafor, Bessent framed the move as a basic question of financial system transparency, asking, "why don’t we have information on who’s in our banking system?" He defended the policy by drawing a parallel to property ownership rules in the UK, implying a security rationale by questioning how authorities can know if an account is not linked to a foreign terrorist organization.

The push for this order aligns with pressure from at least one Republican lawmaker and follows earlier reporting by The Wall Street Journal, which cited anonymous sources indicating that major banks are already preparing for such a mandate. The directive, if finalized, would represent a significant new layer of customer due diligence for the entire U.S. banking sector, moving beyond existing anti-money laundering protocols to explicitly gather citizenship status.

This development signals a major shift in federal financial surveillance policy, placing banks on the front line of a politically charged data collection effort. The order would likely trigger immediate operational and compliance challenges for financial institutions, while raising profound questions about privacy, customer onboarding, and the potential for expanded government scrutiny of financial activity based on immigration status. The Treasury's confirmation moves the policy from speculative reporting into an active administrative process.