One of the country’s largest financial institutions is reversing course on its stance toward the firearms industry.

Citigroup announced on Tuesday that the bank was ending its seven-year-old U.S. Commercial Firearms Policy that restricted its services to businesses that sell bump stocks, “high-capacity” magazines, or firearms to adults under the age of 21. The company said it was doing so in response to regulatory developments, President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders, and political concerns about “fair access” to banking services.

“We will no longer have a specific policy as it relates to firearms,” Ed Skyler, Citigroup’s Executive Vice President of Enterprise Services and Public Affairs, wrote in a post explaining the policy change.

The about-face comes as President Trump has turned up the political heat in his second term on financial institutions he claims are discriminating against conservative causes. The added attention built on complaints that gun-rights advocates and Republican lawmakers have levied against banks for years in response to lending policy restrictions and gun business accounts being dropped for unexplained reasons—a practice often called “debanking” by critics.

In 2018, Citigroup became the first major American bank to adopt significant restrictions on doing business with sellers of certain firearms and accessories in response to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida. Other banks, including Bank of America, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo, soon followed suit.

“As a society, we all know that something needs to change. And as a company, we feel we must do our part,” Skyler said when announcing the restrictions.

Citi at the time said that its policy would apply to all small business, commercial, and institutional clients as well as its credit card partners.

Those moves soon inspired a wave of new anti-discrimination laws in red states across the country designed to shield gun companies from being cut off from access to financial services for engaging in legal commerce and to penalize banks that did so. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), a firearms industry trade group, 11 states have adopted such a policy. Republicans have also introduced a similar policy in Congress.

Citigroup found itself in the crosshairs of the country’s first firearms industry anti-discrimination law in Texas. In 2023, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R.) declared the bank’s policy of refusing to do business with companies that sell “large capacity” magazines was discriminating against the gun industry and forced it out of a $3.4 billion bond deal.

So, Citigroup’s policy flip-flop was met with the exact opposite response from 2018.

Industry members cheered the change.

“We are encouraged by the decision for Citigroup to resume providing financial services to members of our industry and the opportunity to work together to promote real solutions for safer communities, while respecting the rights of law-abiding citizens,” Larry Keane, NSSF’s Senior Vice President, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the gun-control group March for Our Lives, which was formed in part by survivors of the Parkland shooting, accused Citi of “caving” to political pressure.

“Our lives are not a political calculation,” the group wrote in a social media post. “They had the power to take a stand, and they walked away.”

Citigroup’s announcement this week is perhaps the most public gun policy reversal, but it is not the first major bank to shed its lending restrictions in the face of building political pressure. Last summer,  Bank of America quietly walked back its post-Parkland policy of refusing to do business with companies that manufacture or sell what it considers “military-style firearms” in response to the spread of state anti-discrimination legislation.

In addition to dropping its firearms policy, Citigroup also said it plans to update its internal policies to clarify that it doesn’t discriminate based on political affiliation.

“These changes reinforce our commitment to serve all clients fairly, and we will continue to work with regulators and elected officials on ways to improve transparency and trust in the banking sector,” Skyler wrote.