Officials in New York City limited account deposits on Thursday at Capital One and KeyBank after the financial institutions failed to submit required anti-discrimination plans.

The city issued mandates earlier this year for banks which hold public funds to detail “specific steps to combat different forms of discrimination in their operations.” An announcement from the office of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander claimed that Capital One and KeyBank “outright refused” to comply with the requirement.

“Banks seeking to do business with New York City must demonstrate that they will be responsible managers of public funds and responsible actors in our communities,” Lander said in a statement. “Unfortunately, despite several opportunities to do so, five banks failed to comply with the New York City Banking Commission’s designation process, leaving us to conclude that they are not taking meaningful actions to combat discrimination in their operations and are not responsible stewards of public dollars.”

Capital One held $7.2 million in city funds at the end of last month, while KeyBank held $10 million in city funds. Officials voted to freeze new deposits at the two companies for as many as two years, while Lander contended that International Finance Bank, PNC Bank, and Wells Fargo also neglected to comply with the anti-discrimination policies, through which the firms were asked to detail ways in which they avoid “discrimination in branch openings and closings, lending decisions, hiring, and other operations.” The latter firms do not currently hold city funds.

New York City officials received criticism for compelling banks to comply with the environmental, social, and corporate governance movement, also known as ESG, which asserts that businesses should leverage their financial power to advance certain social objectives.

Peter Schiff, a stockbroker and financial commentator, said on social media that banks “only discriminate based on competence and credit worthiness” since they are focused on maximizing profits. He said that New York City wants banks to “hire and make loans to minority applicants, even if they are less qualified and more likely to default.”

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Democratic officials have indeed introduced policies which would introduce considerations for personal loans divorced from the debtor’s financial responsibility. Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Sandra Thompson, an appointee of President Joe Biden, recently unveiled a policy that will require Americans to pay higher mortgage rates and monthly fees if they have robust credit scores, while those with lower credit scores and smaller down payments will receive better rates. Buyers with credit scores above 680, for instance, would pay an additional $40 each month on a home loan of $400,000, while homebuyers who make down payments between 15% and 20% will receive the largest fees.

Republican state financial officers wrote in a letter to Biden and Thompson that the move renders home purchases “significantly more expensive” for families with strong credit. “For decades, Americans have been told that they will be rewarded for saving their money and building a good credit score,” they contended. “This policy turns that time-tested principle upside down.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen likewise launched an Advisory Committee on Racial Equity at the end of last year to consider “efforts to advance racial equity in the economy and address acute disparities for communities of color.”

Elon Musk’s Neuralink neurotechnology startup company received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday to launch its first in-human clinical study.

“This is the result of incredible work by the Neuralink team in close collaboration with the FDA and represents an important first step that will one day allow our technology to help many people,” the company said on Twitter.

Musk has touted that over the years, the experimental brain-chip implant could treat neurological disorders such as paralysis and blindness by bridging signals between existing neurons, and would allow humans to save and replay memories, saying that “the future is going to be weird.”

Neuralink received FDA breakthrough designation for its technology three years ago, and Musk repeatedly claimed that human trials would begin immediately. However, the company had its application rejected in early 2022 by the FDA over safety concerns.

Seven current and former FDA employees told Reuters earlier this year that the agency’s major safety concerns involved “the device’s lithium battery; the potential for the implant’s tiny wires to migrate to other areas of the brain; and questions over whether and how the device can be removed without damaging brain tissue.”

“We want to be extremely careful and certain that it will work well before putting a device into a human,” Musk said, according to Reuters. “The progress at first, particularly as it applies to humans, will seem perhaps agonizingly slow, but we are doing all of the things to bring it to scale in parallel. So, in theory, progress should be exponential.”

The approval comes as U.S. lawmakers requested that regulators investigate how the company has conducted animal testing and if those trials were rushed or resulted in failed experiments.

Neuralink has also faced other federal investigations, including from the USDA’s Inspector General over concerns of violating the Animal Welfare Act and the U.S. Department of Transportation over accusations over the movement of hazardous pathogens.

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Neuralink officials said the recruitment process for its clinical trial has not yet opened.

The FDA has not issued a statement about the approval.

Analysts from Grand View Research expect the worldwide market specific to brain implants to witness a compound annual growth rate above 9% over the next five years. The growing population of senior citizens, who are more likely to suffer from diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, is expected to serve as a key market for the technology.

Deep brain stimulators, which send electrical impulses through electrodes implanted in the brain, currently occupy the largest market share in the broader brain implant space. Increased awareness of the treatment options for neurological movement disorders is expected to accelerate growth in the sector.

Vagus nerve stimulators, which send impulses to the brain through the vagus nerve, are expected to grow at the fastest annualized rate.

News of the advancements in brain-computer interface technology comes as firms rush to develop artificial intelligence solutions.

Paradromics, a company seeking to build direct data interfaces with the human brain, earned a breakthrough device designation last week from the FDA, granting the firm an expedited review process to incorporate the technology into medical applications. The company is seeking to develop an implanted brain-computer interface, also called a BCI, that can function outside of a laboratory to assist patients who lose the physical ability to speak or type, such as those impacted by spinal cord injuries and strokes.

Earlier this month, researchers at the University of Texas in Austin unveiled a system that uses AI to transform a person’s brain activity into written words. The “semantic decoder” learns how to translate thoughts as the person listens to podcasts, and the system concurrently measures brain activity, then produces text that mirrors the meaning of the individual’s thoughts. The system does not require implants but is impractical for use outside of a laboratory.

Ben Zeisloft contributed to this report.