Visa Halts All Political Donations For Now After Capitol Attack

Visa has suspended all political donations for the time being, Reuters reported on Tuesday (Jan. 12).

The payments giant said it had suspended the donations as it reviewed its candidate contribution guidelines.

“Visa does not tolerate the use of our network and products for illegal activity. We are vigilant in our efforts to deter illegal activity on our network, and we require our affiliate banks to review their merchants’ compliance with our standards,” Visa said in an email, according to Reuters.

Numerous businesses have made the decision to cut off President Donald Trump or other lawmakers who are seen as having helped incite last week’s riot at the Capitol building, but not all of them have made a decision to blanket-ban all political donations.

Some of those, according to a report by Bloomberg, include Airbnb, which said it plans to keep banning “violent hate groups” as it has been doing. Amazon, American Express, AT&T, Dow, Marriott, Mastercard and others all  suspended contributions to any member of Congress who voted to object last November’s election results.

Stripe was also among the companies blocking donations to Trump and associates, PYMNTS reports. The company, which handles card payments for millions of online businesses, kicked Trump’s campaign site and fundraising apparatus out for their role in last week’s riot. Stripe users are asked when signing up to agree to the company’s policy of not accepting payments related to the promotion of violence.

Meanwhile, other companies took Visa’s path and just banned all contributions to political parties or goals no matter what party was the focus. J.P. Morgan Chase, Microsoft, Facebook, Coca Cola, Citigroup, Hilton, Duke Energy, Marathon Petroleum and United Parcel Service, among others, took that approach, Bloomberg writes.

There have been prior incidents of violent acts spurring companies to cut them off, too, including Stripe’s ban of right-wing site Gab.com after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting of 2018, since Gab had held messages from the shooter.