Exclusive: Democratic senators support major banks after Trump killed the Discovery rule which imposed a ceiling of $ 5

In a letter sent to 25 banks on Tuesday, Warren, alongside Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) And Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT.), Asked for information on overdraft costs, or charges imposed by banks when consumers spend more money than in their accounts.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency designed in part by Warren as part of Dodd-Frank’s financial reforms, finalized a rule at the end of 2024 which closed an escape allowing banks to invoice exorbitant overdraft. According to the letter sent Tuesday, since 2022, the supervision actions of the CFPB linked to the overdraft costs have led to nearly $ 250 million reimbursed to consumers. President Trump signed a bill led by the Republicans in May 2025 which canceled the rule.

The letter comes in the midst of a broader legal fight between Democratic legislators and the Trump administration, which sought to dismiss 90% of CFPB workers and to reverse a large part of its recent rules, including around the open bank, or the capacity for consumers to transfer their own financial data between different establishments.

The future of the CFPB

While many American regulatory agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, are focused on the supervision of major financial institutions, the CFPB is the only body whose main mandate is to enforce consumer rights, with its authority rooted in the 2008 financial crisis. Since its creation, the office has become a lightning rod for conservatives, republican legislators its financing and to restrict its authority.

Although opponents of the office were faced with legal obstacles, the Trump administration has embarked on a campaign to effectively empty the CFPB in dismissing the vast majority of its employees and providing it with members of the Elon Musk, or DOGE effectiveness department. The courts still stimulate reforms, although the activity of application of the office has been considerably reduced.

This included the regulation of the Biden era, including the provisions linked to the overdraft costs – one of the historic reforms of the office in recent years. The letter sent by the Democratic senators targeted on Tuesday the 10 banks which collected the most overdraft income, which, according to them, represents tens of millions of dollars.

Democrats have argued that overdraft costs can serve as a form of debanrage or remove access to banks for different types of consumers – a practice that Trump administration and many of its supporters have tried to end. In Tuesday’s letter, the authors declared that the discovery costs were massively targeted the Americans at low income, with almost 80% of the costs linked to the overdraft billed at less than 10% of the accounts. They estimated that the rule would have saved consumers to save up to $ 3.5 billion per year. According to the minority of the senatorial banking committee, one of the banks targeted by the letter, Citizens Bank, invoices $ 35 per incident with up to five charges per day and gained $ 100 million in overdraft income in 2023.

The CFPB 2024 rule would have always allowed the largest banks to charge overdraft costs, but limited them to $ 5, or alternately the costs of providing discovery services, and classified them under loans. Republican legislators, such as the president of the Chamber’s Financial Services Committee, French Hill (R-Ark.), Argued that they did not want the federal government to make prices.

With the Democrats of the Senate minority, Warren has much less power as a classification member of the banking committee. With Tuesday’s letter, it aims to collect more data on the way in which the decline in the rule has changed the approach of the banks of overdraft costs.

“Chaotic and half -cooked policies of Trump are wreaking havoc on the economy,” the senators wrote. “The increase in overdraft costs following the repeal of this rule would be inexcusable.”

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