About Us

The California Public Banking Alliance (CPBA) emerged from a shared vision of finance that prioritizes communities over corporate profit. Our all-volunteer team came together inspired by the Standing Rock divestment movement, where Indigenous groups and water protectors sought to move money out of big banks funding the Dakota Access Pipeline. As we pushed for divestment across California, we uncovered a deeper problem: nearly every bank managing public funds was tied to the very industries harming our communities. So we chose a different path. If better banks didn’t exist, we would build them.

That vision sparked Public Bank LA in 2018 followed by the establishment of the California Public Banking Alliance in 2019. We united organizers from divestment campaigns in San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Rosa, and beyond, many of whom had already launched local public banking efforts, including the SF Public Bank Coalition and Public Bank East Bay. Today, we’re a coalition of advocates across 10 cities and regions in California, working to build a network of socially and environmentally responsible public banks.

Public banking serves as a powerful tool to keep taxpayer dollars in local communities. Cities and counties currently hold billions of dollars of public money in Wall Street banks. Legally, these corporate banks control this money and can use it for strictly profit-motivated purposes, without regard for environmental impacts, social good, or betterment of the local economy that provided the funds. Their investments prioritize harmful industries including private prisons, immigrant detention centers, weapons manufacturers, fossil fuel pipelines, and other investments that place profit over small local businesses, regional infrastructure such as public housing and recreation, and care for the planet. These too-big-to-fail banks engage in risky and fraudulent practices similar to or worse than those that crashed the global economy in 2008.

In 2019, the California Public Banking Alliance’s grassroots public banking advocates from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, the South Bay, Santa Rosa, Santa Barbara, Humboldt-Eureka, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and San Diego worked together to write and pass AB 857, the California Public Banking Act. This legislation made California the first state in the nation to authorize the chartering of municipal public banks.  

The California Public Banking Act was signed into law by Governor Newsom, praised nationally by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, uplifted by Senator Bernie Sanders, and finalized with state regulations in 2022. Since then, we’ve worked with local governments and community coalitions across California to get these banks off the ground, and have influenced public banking legislation beyond California.

Since the passage of the California Public Banking, multiple local governments including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, the East Bay, and the Central Coast, have passed legislation to move forward with implementing public banks in their localities. We have the opportunity now to build a new alternative banking system through locally-controlled socially and environmentally responsible public banks, enabling cities and counties to recapture public dollars and have a say over the financing of our own communities.

Beyond banking municipalities, CPBA is also working to bring essential financial services to over 6 million unbanked and underbanked Californians. AB 1177, the Public Banking Option Act (CalAccount), signed into law by Governor Newsom in October 2021, established the CalAccount Blue Ribbon Commission to explore the feasibility of the CalAccount program, offering fee-free and penalty-free debit cards to all Californians making available basic financial services such as check cashing, deposits and bill paying. In 2022, the CalAccount Blue Ribbon Commission, chaired by State Treasurer Fiona Ma, was formed to assess the feasibility, scope, and costs of the CalAccount program. The market analysis report was completed in July 2024, and concluded that the program is feasible and necessary to address the financial inclusion of unbanked and underbanked Californians.

The CalAccount program is currently under consideration in the 2025-26 State Legislative Session. Upon approval, CalAccount will be implemented as the nation’s first universal banking services program.

In addition to our work at the local and state-level, CPBA has also shaped federal public banking legislation. The Public Banking Act of 2020 and the Public Banking Act of 2023, co-sponsored by Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), would create a federal framework to support the nationwide formation of public banks nationwide by providing grants, technical assistance, and access to Federal Reserve services for state and local governments.