Banks Have 'Blood on Their Hands' for Debanking Adult Entertainment Workers

September 25, 2024

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City regulator FCA report warns banks over denying accounts for sex workers
Campaigner says it’s time for banks to treat adult businesses as legitimate businesses and sex workers as human beings
Jessica Van Meir set up an online adult content creators’ platform to address issues such as high fees, financial discrimination and piracy, in a market dominated by the controversial OnlyFans site

Banks will have ‘blood on their hands’ if someone in the adult entertainment industry dies due to financial exclusion, according to an expert on sex workers’ rights.

Earlier this month, the City regulator warned UK banks over denying accounts for sex workers, after hearing that a lack of access to business banking could lead to ‘significant harm’ for individuals.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said that while banks said they were able to provide accounts for the adult entertainment industry in theory, they were often denying or shutting down business accounts in practice.

And Jessica Van Meir, a former Gates Cambridge scholar now studying sex workers’ rights at Harvard, says that for sex workers, a bank account is literally a matter of life and death.

jessica-van-meir-sex-workers-right-campaigner-and-co-founder-of-sex-positive-platform — Jessica Van Meir, sex workers’ rights campaigner and co-founder of ‘sex-positive’ platform https://www.mintstars.com/.

She said:

‘We hear about debanking when figures such as Nigel Farage have their Coutts accounts shuttered – it’s no coincidence that the opening paragraphs of the FCA document focus on account termination because of political beliefs.

‘But, as the FCA makes clear, for some groups, being denied a bank account is an issue of safety as much as convenience.

‘If you work in the adult entertainment industry – and that covers a huge number of roles, from full-service sex workers and strippers to online content creators and dominatrices – then it’s a matter of when, not if, you will lose access to basic financial services like banking, loans or peer-to-peer payment apps.

‘Banks aren’t supposed to treat sex workers this way – as the FCA report makes clear, sex work is legal in Great Britain – but they do anyway, and they have their excuses. Sex workers may be seen as a “reputational risk” for banks; banks may have to perform additional anti-money laundering checks on adult businesses, and others, such as pawnbrokers and bookies; and banks fear potential liability for sex trafficking.’

Lenders often closed accounts on the basis of financial crime or reputational grounds, the watchdog said. That is despite sex work being legal in the UK apart from Northern Ireland, where it is illegal to pay for sex.

A recent FCA roundtable meeting revealed serious concerns about a lack of access to financial services for individuals across the adult entertainment industry, which covers stripping, pornography, escort and dominatrix work and “full sexual service”, more commonly referred to as prostitution.

Van Meir, 29, the co-founder of the ‘sex-positive’ platform MintStars, added:

‘I set up MintStars to address issues that online sex workers face daily, including exploitation, piracy, and exclusion by banks and social media platforms.

‘Fighting financial discrimination is our mission – that’s why, for example, we rallied our community behind a petition demanding the Government ensures sex workers are not excluded from banking services.

‘Despite their obligations to make basic services available, banks – and credit card giants and payment specialists such as PayPal – have shown they don’t care about safety or basic rights in sectors such as adult entertainment.

‘Now the FCA has issued such a damning report, banks cannot say they were not warned. If someone dies as a result of financial exclusion, the blood will be on their hands.

‘The reputational risk from denying us accounts has now become greater than the perceived reputational risk from accepting us as customers. It’s time for banks to treat adult businesses as legitimate businesses and sex workers as human beings.’

The CEO of MintStars, Daniel Sargent, has taken to YouTube to address the issue as well: