U.S. banks want to continue choosing whether to lend money to the oil and gas industry according to risk and reputation management practices, asking a regulator not to proceed with a new rule that could force them to deal with such companies. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has recently proposed a new rule to ensure the so-called fair access to financial services, aiming to finalize a rule soon. The proposal has drawn numerous comments during the 45-day comment period that ended on Monday, including that of the Bank Policy Institute (BPI)—a nonpartisan public policy, research, and advocacy group, representing the nation’s leading banks. BPI called on the OCC this week to withdraw its “fair access” proposal, which, the banks say, “would micromanage banks’ business decisions in an unprecedented way.” According to the banks , the new rule “would also appear to prohibit banks from using […]