So far, California lawmakers have churned out over 30 AI-related bills this year, each more muddled than the last. Senate Bills 243 and 420, for example, target a range of issues, from mental health chatbots to general-purpose AI. Layer in proposed bans on impersonation tools, new limits on how employers can use AI and rigid rules around biometric data, and the result is a regulatory morass that threatens to halt innovation in its tracks.

While the press release version sounds like a broad defense of free financial access, the actual order is more of a neighborhood watch than a citywide ban. It applies only to banks, savings associations, credit unions, and other outfits directly supervised by federal banking regulators or the SBA.

That means Visa and Mastercard, the twin tollbooth operators of the global payments highway, are untouched. Same with PayPal, Stripe, and other tech-driven platforms that have spent years quietly freezing out lawful but unpopular actors with all the due process that in the real world wouldn’t even get you a parking ticket.

The order, while a step in the right direction, leaves the most widespread form of financial censorship exactly where it was before the cameras rolled, hidden in corporate terms of service and enforced by compliance officers who answer to no electorate. The banks may have lost the cover of “reputation risk,” but the real gatekeepers never needed it in the first place.