Citibank kills firearms policy: Gun businesses to be treated like others, says spokesman

Source: WorldNetDaily.com

Published: 3/8/00

Author: Jon E. Dougherty

After intense public pressure and a threatened boycott, following a series of WorldNetDaily reports exposing Citibank’s practice of denying banking services to firearms business, the global financial giant has now reversed its “longstanding” policy.

Yesterday, Mark Rodgers, a public relations specialist for the New York-based mega-banking firm told WND the corporation “went out and looked at our policies across (all Citibank branches) and found that (they) were inconsistent.”

After reviewing several policy “areas,” Rodgers said, “we decided we must have uniform policies across the U.S.” Consequently, he said, Citibank “decided that moving forward the practice of assessing a small business account will apply uniformly in small businesses,” including those “engaged in the manufacture or sale of small firearms.”

Rodgers said the firm would rate firearms businesses “the same as any other small business, using the same standards such as creditworthiness, the number of years in business, and so on.”

Rodgers faxed a confirmation copy of the new policy to WorldNetDaily.

The policy reversal comes on the heels of a controversy that began Feb. 7, when a Las Vegas branch of Citibank closed a three-day-old checking account opened by the Nevada Pistol Academy, a local shooting club. At that time, local area branch managers told the academy’s director, Chris Lorenzo, in a letter, “Due to Citibank not maintaining accounts for businesses that deal in weapons,” the account would have to be closed.

Lorenzo, who spoke with WorldNetDaily after the closure, said that while the corporate banking giant was “free to do business with whomever they choose,” he also felt it was important to let other gun-business owners “know where they stand.”

Lorenzo could not be reached for comment Monday.

However, the Second Amendment Foundation, a Washington state-based pro-gun group, is calling the decision a “sweet victory for all law-abiding gun owners.” The group had called for a nationwide boycott of Citibank because of the policy.

Alan Gottlieb, the group’s founder, said the decision “ends more than a decade of silent discrimination” against lawfully licensed firearms-related businesses.

“I couldn’t be more pleased,” Gottlieb said.

In the early 1980s, Rodgers said, Citibank began buying a large number of independent banks all over the country, noting, “for many years, they operated pretty much independently, with their own policies, services and products.”

In the past few years, he said, “we’ve been bringing those together so that we are consistent and uniform across the business units and geography” at all Citibank branches.

What the treatment of the Nevada Pistol Academy proved, Rodgers said, “is that we had an inconsistency in the policy in business units, so we moved to bring those together so that they were in agreement.”

On Feb. 24, WND reported a major inconsistency in Citibank’s policy in that the firm conducts business with and has close corporate ties to major military contractors that produce jet fighters and other defense equipment, while refusing — until now — to offer services to small gun businesses.

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