House Bill 585 – LARA Meeting and Call to Action

Dear FIBA Member:

We ask for your help calling the legislators listed at the bottom of this email TODAY so we can express our industry’s OPPOSITION to Florida House Bill 585 (HB 585). HB 585 is a bill that is quickly advancing in the Florida House of Representatives that could have serious impacts to your day-today operations. 

HB 585 follows Florida House Bill 3, which as you know, requires Florida state-chartered and state authorized banks as well as Florida qualified public depositories (“QPDs”) to attest that they do not maintain policies and procedures that discriminate against a person based on political opinions, religious grounds, a social credit score, or any factor that is not “quantitative, impartial and risk-based.” On December 13, 2023, the Insurance & Banking Subcommittee of the Florida House of Representatives voted 15 to 3 to approve HB 585 in its current form. The bill now goes to the full Commerce Committee of the Florida House of Representatives for further consideration.

HB 585 Scope and Impact

HB 585 would require financial institutions including Florida-chartered banks, trust companies, credit unions, international bank agencies, international branches of foreign banks and QPDs (collectively, “Financial Institutions”) to file “termination-of-access” reports with the Florida Office of Financial Regulation (OFR), when terminating, suspending, or taking any “similar action restricting” a customer’s (or credit union member’s) account access, unless such action was a result of:

(i) the customer or member initiating the change;

(ii) a lack of activity in the account; or

(iii) the account being presumed unclaimed, pursuant to Florida unclaimed property laws.

The OFR has 90 days from the filing of the termination-of-access report to investigate and determine whether the action was taken in “bad faith as substantiated by competent and substantial evidence that was known or should have been known to the [F]inancial [I]nstitution at the time” of the action. If the OFR makes a determination of a “bad faith,” the OFR then has 30 days to report its findings to the Attorney General, the Florida Chief Financial Officer, and the affected customer. HB 585 does not define “bad faith.”

The Financial Institution may be found to be in violation of the Florida financial institutions codes and be subject to sanctions and penalties if the OFR finds that the Financial Institution: (i) acted in “bad faith” when terminating, suspending, or taking a “similar action restricting” a customer’s account access; or (ii) failed to timely file a termination-of-access report. QPDs may also be subject to suspension or disqualification.

Customer Private Right of Action

HB 585 provides aggrieved customers whose bank accounts were terminated or suspended with a private right of action against the Financial Institution for damages, including costs and attorney fees, if the OFR determines that the Financial Institution acted in bad faith. There is a 12-month statute of limitations for an aggrieved customer to prove the existence of bad faith beyond a reasonable doubt. This has the potential to lead to costly litigation over the decision to close an account and put Financial Institutions in a difficult situation if the closure was AML-related. 

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What’s Next?

Take Action!

Please call the members of the Florida legislature listed below if you live or have a branch in South Florida. Tell the legislator that you are OPPOSED to HB 585 because it is an overreach of government over banking business in the state of Florida, that will result in significantly increasing compliance costs for banks and will discourage new banking business in the state. Let them know that HB 585 may also conflict with federal laws prohibiting banks from disclosing to third parties information regarding a bank’s decision to terminate, suspend or restrict a customer’s account access.

Please pass this along to all your bank employees and board members.

Florida Legislators to Call:

House Insurance & Banking Subcommittee Members:

• Marie Paul Woodson, Hollywood, (850) 717-5105
• David Borrero, Sweetwater, (850) 717-5111
• Christopher Benjamin, Miami Gardens, (850) 717-5107
• Tom Fabricio, Miami Lakes, (850) 717-5110
• Christine Hunschofsky, Parkland, (850) 717-5095

State Administration & Technology Appropriations Subcommittee Members:

• Demi Busata Cabrera (Chair), Coral Gables (850) 717-5114
• James Vernon “Jim” Mooney (Vice-Chair), Monroe and part of Miami-Dade, (850) 717-5120
• Felicia Simone Robinson (Ranking Member), parts of Broward and Miami-Dade (850) 717-5104
• David Borrero, part of Miami-Dade (850) 717-5111

Ethics, Elections & Open Government Subcommittee Members:

• Tom Fabricio (Chair), part of Miami-Dade, (850) 717-5110
• Juan Carlos Porras, part of Miami-Dade, (850) 717-5119
• Alex Rizo, part of Miami-Dade, (850) 717-5112
• Felicia Simone Robinson, parts of Broward and Miami-Dade (850) 717-5104

Commerce Committee Members:

• Christopher Benjamin, part of Miami-Dade, (850) 717-5107
• Dan Daley, part of Broward, (850) 717-5096

Attend Our LARA Meeting

We will hold a meeting for all FIBA members on January 16^th at 11 am to discuss HB 585, its impact on our members and next steps to oppose this bill. 

Details for this meeting will be distributed during the first week of January.

Thank you for your help.