While his administration was dismantling the main federal agency that oversaw the banks, President Donald Trump was quietly buying securities issued by those same banks and did not disclose the purchases to the public for several months.

Federal ethics disclosures published on March 4, 2026 reveal thatTrump made more than 170 separate investment purchasesbetween May and November 2025, the vast majority of them in securities tied to major financial institutions. The transactions, disclosed in a series of lateOGE Form 278-T periodic transaction reportsfiled with the US Office of Government Ethics, were submitted well after the legally required reporting window, with the government's own filings noting the notifications were 'received over 30 days ago' and that Trump paid late filing fees.

Adding together the upper end of the value ranges disclosed in the filings suggests the total investment could exceed £15.5 million ($20 million). The disclosures were first reported bySludge, an investigative outlet focused on money in politics.

Under federal law, senior executive branch officials are required to disclose securities transactions exceeding £775 ($1,000) within 30 days of receiving notification of the trade, and no later than 45 days after the transaction itself. TheOGE Form 278-Tis the standard form for periodic transaction reporting. Transaction values are disclosed only in broad ranges, for example, £775–£11,600 ($1,001–$15,000) or £775,000–£3.9 million ($1,000,001–$5,000,000), which makes precise totalling impossible. The upper bound calculation of over £15.5 million ($20 million) represents the maximum possible aggregate, not a confirmed figure.

The publicly available October 2025 filing, reviewed directly for this article, lists purchases in bonds and debt instruments issued by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citigroup, among others. Non-bank purchases in that filing includesecurities from Meta Platforms, Broadcom, Boeing, UnitedHealth Group, Comcast, Qualcomm, and BP Capital Markets.

A number of the transactions are flagged as 'Yes' under the 'Notification Received Over 30 Days Ago' column, meaning they were already overdue even at the point of submission. The notation 'Filer paid late fees' appears explicitly on at least one separate 278-T filing from August 2025, also publicly accessible through theOGE's presidential disclosures index.

The securities Trump purchased include corporate bonds, preferred shares and variable-rate notes. Most pay fixed or variable income rather than tracking a company's share price. Banks issue these instruments to raise capital and satisfy regulatory requirements. Yields on bank-issued preferred shares and subordinated debt typically range from 3 to over 8 per cent annually, making them attractive for income generation — and also making their value sensitive to whatever regulatory environment the issuing bank operates in.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the federal agency created by the Dodd‑Frank Act of 2010 to oversee consumer financial products, penalise abusive practices and supervise major banks, was being systematically dismantled during the same period that Trump was building his bank security portfolio.

Within days of taking office in January 2025, Trump's acting CFPB director Russell Voughtclosed the agency's Washington headquartersand ordered all staff to stop work. The CFPB's social media accounts were deleted. DOGE, the efficiency unit run by Elon Musk, accessed the agency's internal computer systems. Staff were reduced from roughly 1,700 under Biden to fewer than 200, a cut so severe that it triggered multiple legal challenges.

In May 2025, Congress repealed the CFPB's overdraft fee rule, which had proposed capping fees at £3.90 ($5) for large banks, through the Congressional Review Act, a move Trump signed into law. Banks currently charge an average of £20.70 ($26.77) per overdraft transaction, according toBankrate data. Consumers paid an estimated £9.4 billion ($12.1 billion) in overdraft and non-sufficient funds fees in 2024 alone.

Source: International Business Times UK