What exactly are the banks up to? Amalgamated Bank, which works with 1000 unions, successfully got the International Standards Organization (ISO) to approve a new Merchant Category Code (MCC) exclusively for gun stores. This MCC code monitors firearm sales and the banking activity of people buying guns or ammo. Banks are renowned for keeping careful records of their customers’ financial transactions, but will they use gun sales records to create an unofficial gun registry?
The new MCC monitors gun sales
The new Merchant Category Code (MCC) applies explicitly to gun and ammunition stores’ transaction records. Banks can use the MCC to tag those records and then monitor the bank accounts of people who purchase guns or ammo. Banks can then mark transactions as red flags if they believe customers’ account activity is suspicious.
Typically union members tend to be pro-gun, but it seems as though Amalgamated Bank isn’t following suit. The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) has referred to Amalgamated Bank as “the same Bank that refuses to do business with anyone in the gun industry but bankrolls the Democratic National Committee.”
What if other banks follow suit?
The new MCC could result in Banks using their books to keep an unofficial gun registry. Since the MCC monitors bank account activity for anyone who purchases guns and ammo, it creates a delicate situation. People in the United States have the right to own weapons under the 2nd Amendment. That makes banks involving themselves in the issue makes matters even more complicated.
Banks using gun-related purchases as a gateway to tracking customers’ account activity is its own conversation. But the ability to determine red flags based only on the numbers in those bank accounts means guidelines must be involved.
Banks can’t have the power to dictate what customers do with their money or prevent them from purchasing guns. That complicates the new MCC’s potential uses because it starts to sound like gun control.
What does this mean for consumers?
In the future, you may not have to provide your bank with additional documentation when you purchase firearms. But they could still be able to track your bank activity through this new MCC if you buy guns or ammo. This could have huge implications if more banks use the new MCC to try to stop gun sales.
Amalgamated Banks’ CEO, Priscilla Sims Brown, says they are doing “[their] part to stop gun violence.” However, many others express concern this is a way for banks to circumvent Congress and establish an unofficial gun registry. 23 Republican state attorneys suggested as much in their letter to Visa, MasterCard, and American Express about the new MCC.
