APAG: New Fair Banking Rule May End Adult Worker Discrimination

LOS ANGELES—The Adult Performance Artists Guild (APAG) released a statement Friday morning concerning a new rule just announced by the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (COO) which APAG says may put an end to the discrimination many adult industry workers have encountered in recent years from banking institutions. The OCC is an independent bureau of the United States Treasury Department that serves to ensure safety and soundness within the national banking system. The full APAG statement follows: "Yesterday the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released its finalized rule to ensure fair access to banking, and this will change the way that banks are allowed to treat legalized sex work. Adult workers have faced occupational discrimination lead by the banking industry since Operation Choke Point was put in place. This policy that blocked banking access for high-risk accounts, would affect performers even when those workers didn’t violate banking policies or accounting rules. Performers and adult businesses have famously lost bank accounts from institutions such as Bank of America, City Bank, Paypal, Square, and Chase. “'The rule codifies more than a decade of OCC guidance stating that banks should conduct risk assessment of individual customers, rather than make broad-based decisions affecting whole categories or classes of customers, when provisioning access to services, capital, and credit,' reported OCC.gov.  "'As Comptrollers and staff in previous administrations have made clear in speeches, guidance, and testimony, banks should not terminate services to entire categories of customers without conducting individual risk assessments. It is inconsistent with basic principles of prudent risk management to make decisions based solely on conclusory or categorical assertions of risk without actual analysis. Moreover, elected officials should determine what is legal and illegal in our country,'  said acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian P. Brooks. "This news released today is a major move towards ending banking discrimination against our community. We are looking into how this could affect payment processors such as Paypal, Venmo, Square, and other banking services as they deny adult workers from using their services as customers. "As we continue to push our fight forward, the Adult Performance Artists Guild will continue to work to make our occupation a protected class. We are fighting to make occupational discrimination illegal."