it provides banking
services to firearm manufacturers, sellers and resellers.
The bank launched the policy in March 2018 after a teenage gunman killed 17 people and injured more than a dozen in a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14 that year.
Citi said at the time that it would require clients to "adhere to these best practices: (1) they don't sell firearms to someone who hasn't passed a background check, (2) they restrict the sale of firearms for individuals under 21 years of age, and (3) they don't sell bump stocks or high-capacity magazines."
The bank's policy applied only to its business clients, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500-sized companies. It did not restrict how Citi's personal banking customers used their cards. Citi says it provides banking services to more than 19,000 companies globally.
"As a society, we all know that
something needs to change. And as a company, we feel we must do our part," Citigroup Executive Vice President of Enterprise Services and Public Affairs Ed Skyler said in 2018.
But Skyler says things have changed. "The policy was intended to promote the adoption of best sales practices as prudent risk management and didn’t address the manufacturing of firearms," he wrote Tuesday in a blog post announcing that Citi "will no longer have a specific policy as it relates to firearms."
"Many retailers have been following these best practices," Skyler wrote, "and we hope communities and lawmakers will continue to seek out ways to prevent the tragic consequences of gun violence."
March for Our Lives,
a gun-control advocacy group organized in part by students who survived the Parkland massacre, slammed Citi's decision Tuesday.
"Citi just chose appeasing Donald Trump over protecting the lives of kids," said March for Our Lives Executive Director Jackie Corin. "Seven years ago, after 17 of my peers and teachers were murdered, Citi found the courage to say 'no more' — no more financing gun sales to teenagers. Today, they're saying our lives matter less than their politics."
