Consumer privacy notice of major financial institutions compared

I was curious if there are any financial institutions that only share your personal information with the government (as required by law) and not with affiliates, but if they do share with affiliates, whether you have the option to opt out.

For this comparison, I looked at the consumer privacy notice of the following financial institutions. I'm including a direct link to that notice and the date it was last revised.

• Ally Bank (rev: January 2025)
• American Express (rev: March 2024)
• Bank of America (rev: April 2025)
• BMO Bank (rev: Unknown)
• Capital One (rev: September 2025)
• Chase (rev: December 2025)
• Citibank (rev: July 2024)
• Citizens Bank (rev: August 2025)
• Fifth Third Bank (rev: September 2025)
• First Citizens Bank (rev: December 2025)
• Huntington Bank (rev: Unknown)
• KeyBank (rev: November 2025)
• M&T Bank (rev: September 2025)
• PNC Bank (rev: June 2025)
• TD Bank (rev: January 2022)
• Truist Bank (rev: January 2025)
• U.S. Bank (rev: March 2025)
• Wells Fargo (rev: April 2025)

Most financial institutions break down the sharing of personal information into the following seven categories (later referenced as C1-C7):

1. For our everyday business purposes — such as to process your transactions, maintain your account(s), respond to court orders and legal investigations, or report to credit bureaus
2. For our marketing purposes — with service providers we use to offer our products and services to you (please see below to limit the ways in which we contact you)
3. For joint marketing with other financial companies
4. For our affiliates’ everyday business purposes — information about your transactions and experiences
5. For our affiliates’ everyday business purposes — information about your creditworthiness
6. For our affiliates to market to you
7. For non-affiliates to market to you

Below are my findings. Each category is one column and answers the question: Is my information for this purpose shared? An asterisk next to Yes indicates that you have the option to opt out. I'm also including some nuances after the table.

It seems like most banks are in lockstep, but there are a few differences.

• U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo don't share your personal information with other financial institutions for marketing purposes. PNC Bank does, but you can opt out.
• TD Bank is the only bank that doesn't share your creditworthiness with affiliates.
• Bank of America had a more granular notice regarding the sharing of data with non-affiliates. They distinguish between credit card accounts, accounts and services endorsed by another organization, and insurance, investments, deposit, and lending accounts.
• Capital One, Chase, and Citibank share your personal information even with non-affiliates to market to you, unlike the others, which limit this sharing to just affiliates.

In conclusion, I didn't find a clear winner here, but it's also what I expected to see.

If you are concerned about your privacy and are looking for a financial institution that has a more favorable privacy policy, take a look at your local community banks or credit unions. Preliminary research indicates that they are less likely to share.

For example, and this is not an endorsement, State Street Bank says that they don't share anything except for what is necessary, but I have to point out that their notice hasn't been updated since 2020, so things could have changed.

If you know of any financial institutions with a privacy notice closer to that of State Street Bank, I'd love to hear about it.

Featured image by Etienne Martin.