The Trump Administration is considering requiring banks to collect proof of citizenship (e.g passports) according to WSJ & Semafor. If implement the policy would be retroactive meaning banks would need to collect this information from existing accountholders. The order would be via president order, not legislation.
Financial institutions have already pushed back on the news saying that it’s unworkable, with many account holders not having this information on hand. I assume nothing will actually come from this and some other concession will be given instead. For example President Trump called for a cap on credit card interest rates of 10%, then Visa said rewards would be able to be deposited into so called ‘Trump Accounts’ and we haven’t heard much about interest rate caps again.
Additional document requirements would likely be costly for financial institutions as well, this could erode bank account bonuses, remove benefits and increase fees.
