🏦 Tennessee SB 1091 / HB 728

This bill enacts the "Tennessee Fair Access to Financial Services Act," which requires a financial institution to do the following in order to provide fair access to financial services:

(1) Make each financial service it offers available to each person in the geographic market served by the financial institution on a non-discriminatory basis;

(2) Approve or deny a person a financial service that the financial institution offers solely based on the quantitative impartial risk-based financial standards established in advance by the financial institution;

(3) Not deny a person a financial service that the financial institution offers, except as provided in (2) above, when the effect of the denial is to prevent, limit, or otherwise disadvantage the person from entering or competing in a market or business segment; or in such a way that benefits another person or business activity in which the financial institution has a financial interest; and

(4) Not deny, in coordination with others, except as provided in (2) above, a person a financial service that the financial institution offers.

In order to provide financial services in this state, a financial institution that utilizes standards or guidelines based on non-financial, non-traditional, or subjective criteria, such as environmental, social, and governance scores or diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, would be required to do the following under this bill:

(1) Disclose to the department of financial institutions the specific standards, guidelines, and criteria used by the financial institution to determine access or denial of a financial service to a person in this state;

(2) Provide to a person denied a financial service a disclosure with the specific data, information, criteria, and standard used to support the denial, in bold fourteen-point font; and

(3) Comply with rules promulgated by the department.

This bill requires the commissioner of financial institutions to enforce this bill and to promulgate rules to effectuate this bill. This bill provides that a financial institution that violates this bill is subject to a fine of $10,000. Additionally, this bill makes it a Class A misdemeanor for a financial institution to commit five or more violations within a 12-month period from the date of the first violation.