PayPal, Square and big banking's war on the sex industry
"Monday a federal appeals court ruled that pressuring credit card companies like Visa and Mastercard to stop doing business with speech-protected websites violates their First Amendment rights. Specifically ones that feature content from sex workers. And in June, the FDIC clarified that it's against the rules for businesses like PayPal, Chase and Square to refuse business or close accounts based on "high risk" assessments related to human sexuality. "
"That's thanks to a federal mess called Operation Choke Point, launched in 2013 by the US Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force (FFETF). It targeted financial institutions working with third party processors (namely Paypal and Square) because they're bottlenecks for the flow of online payments.
Choke Point relied on a vague FDIC guidance document; this year, the House Oversight Committee found collusion between the FDIC and FFETF, stating "The Committee has obtained substantial evidence suggesting that as a result of coordinated actions by the FDIC and the Department of Justice, banks are terminating relationships with entirely legitimate and licensed businesses." This led to leading to hearings by the House Judiciary Committee and the House Financial Services Committee, and lawsuits against the FDIC.
Hence the FDIC's new, detailed guidance document for banks, one in which "reputational risk" is now omitted -- thus officially not enough a to deny or close an account. The FDIC's categories of "high risk" specify fraudulent goods and services, and tactics "such as aggressive telemarketing or enticing and misleading pop-up advertisements on Web sites."
While "unlawful Internet gambling and the illegal sale of tobacco products on the Internet" are singled out as FDIC "high risk" areas, PayPal's "items that are considered obscene ... [or] certain sexually oriented materials or services" are most definitely not."
"Monday a federal appeals court ruled that pressuring credit card companies like Visa and Mastercard to stop doing business with speech-protected websites violates their First Amendment rights. Specifically ones that feature content from sex workers. And in June, the FDIC clarified that it's against the rules for businesses like PayPal, Chase and Square to refuse business or close accounts based on "high risk" assessments related to human sexuality. "
"That's thanks to a federal mess called Operation Choke Point, launched in 2013 by the US Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force (FFETF). It targeted financial institutions working with third party processors (namely Paypal and Square) because they're bottlenecks for the flow of online payments.
Choke Point relied on a vague FDIC guidance document; this year, the House Oversight Committee found collusion between the FDIC and FFETF, stating "The Committee has obtained substantial evidence suggesting that as a result of coordinated actions by the FDIC and the Department of Justice, banks are terminating relationships with entirely legitimate and licensed businesses." This led to leading to hearings by the House Judiciary Committee and the House Financial Services Committee, and lawsuits against the FDIC.
Hence the FDIC's new, detailed guidance document for banks, one in which "reputational risk" is now omitted -- thus officially not enough a to deny or close an account. The FDIC's categories of "high risk" specify fraudulent goods and services, and tactics "such as aggressive telemarketing or enticing and misleading pop-up advertisements on Web sites."
While "unlawful Internet gambling and the illegal sale of tobacco products on the Internet" are singled out as FDIC "high risk" areas, PayPal's "items that are considered obscene ... [or] certain sexually oriented materials or services" are most definitely not."
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