Fifth Third to Halt Future Financing to Private-Prison Firms

(Bloomberg) -- Fifth Third Bancorp said it won’t provide future financing to companies that manage private prisons and immigration holding facilities.

“While these companies are not a material portion of Fifth Third’s business, we have decided not to provide future financing to this segment,” the Cincinnati-based lender said in a statement Monday. “We will honor the existing credit and loan commitments currently on our books, but we do not intend to enter any new financing arrangements with these companies.”

Fifth Third’s decision follows similar moves by Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and SunTrust Banks Inc. Politicians including Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, who is running for president, have urged bank executives and investors to back away from the business as immigration detentions have soared. The two biggest for-profit prison companies, Geo Group Inc. and CoreCivic Inc., have called the banks’ moves politically motivated.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lananh Nguyen in New York at lnguyen35@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Daniel Taub

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