How to pay me (or not to) 

financial discrimination faced by sex workers

I live and work predominantly in Sydney, NSW, Australia, where sex work has mostly decriminalised since 1995. Decriminalisation is the best model for sex workers, it allows sex work to be seen as a job like any other, and treated as such, allowing sex workers to access the same services as other professions and have the same rights as other professions. In NSW we do not have progressive anti-discrimination legislation, and therefore, it is legal to discriminate against someone due to their work, therefore I can legally work, and still face financial discrimination in the areas of banking, payment processor usage, applying for mortgage and getting loans.

I will run through the ways in which I can and cannot get paid to show you how even in a largely decriminalised model, sex workers still do not have the rights of the majority of citizens or businesses, making it hard to be able to take payment for our legal work, especially in a pandemic. I make this point because NSW has some of the best sex worker legislation in the world (we do not have full decriminalisation due to the draconian legislation towards street based sex workers) and I still have limited financial options for my business, which in turn affects how my business can grow.

A lot has been written by American based sex workers about financial discrimination. At time of publication, three weeks ago Only Fans decided it was not going to host adult content (it then suspended its ban on adult content a few days later), due to MasterCard and other financial institutions putting pressure on them to do so, using the reason of trafficking. I will discuss the right wing argument of falsely meshing trafficking/child exploitation and sex work in a blog in the future. Detailed information about how MasterCard’s policy specifically effects LGBTQIA+ and trans/gender diverse sex workers and performers, can be found on the website acceptancematters.org

In this blog, I will be talking to the Australian experience of financial discrimination, I believe that other workers in other countries are better placed to write about the financial discrimination that they are subjected to. I believe it is important to show the level of financial discrimination that sex workers face in NSW, despite the state having a mostly decriminalised model and how this highlights how much more financial discrimination is experienced by sex workers in other parts of Australia and the world, with laws which are more punitive towards sex work.

Banks

Some banks do support sex workers to open accounts, although from my limited research, these are in the minority. Most banks, either do not have adequate protections for sex workers as customers and some have gone on to shut down the accounts of sex workers. The Sex Work Law Reform has an extensive list of Australian financial institutions and payment processors which do an do not support sex workers. Some of their information is not up to date so I will add a few pieces below.

The Big 4

None of the big 4 banks (Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), ANZ, NAB and Westpac) are known for supporting the needs of sex workers/sex businesses to use their banking systems. There are reasons why customers like to use the big 4 banks, ease of branch access, wanting to get home loans etc in the future. Now that most banks offer Osko payments (instant bank to bank payments) the need to be with a larger bank is somewhat smaller as most payments are instant.

Smaller banks

A number of smaller banks and specifically Bendigo Bank are known for offering banking services to sex workers and being aware of their unique needs as customers. From my personal experience of a variety of banking institutions, Bendigo Bank/Up would be my bank suggestion of preference.

Online Banking

Many sex workers choose to use online banks due to their ease of use, especially as they all use Osko.

Up Bank, run by Bendigo Bank, is supportive of sex workers and when you choose your occupation there is an option for escort/sex worker. At this time they only offer personal accounts but they are looking at opening additional accounts/business accounts in the future, therefore it is not possible to use this as a work account, only as a personal account.

Problems/Instances of financial discrimination

However online banks such as ING have disallowed financial transactions or queried sex workers trying to make payments for advertisements, again despite this being legal in the state in which they work. 

From my personal experience of a variety of banking institutions, Bendigo Bank/Up would be my bank suggestion of preference. I have heard that Me bank is another alternative bank which other sex workers have used without problem. I will be keeping the comment section open so that individuals can leave information about specific instances of either great or poor customer experiences.

Beem It/Cash apps

Beem It is owned by Eftpos (see below) is similar to Venmo and CashApp in the USA and allows users to create a profile and send money to other individuals, using their profile username, without needing additional information such as their bank details or phone numbers. The sender chooses what to describe what for the money is being sent for.

Why it is used in the sex industry

This is particularly useful for sex workers and their clients as it does not list any information about the individual transactions on the bank statement of the person paid or paying via Beem It, other than ‘beem it refund’ or ‘beem it withdrawl’. It therefore looks discrete for sex workers, in the case that they are not out to their bank, and for clients who might have others looking over their bank statements. 

Problems/Instances of financial discrimination

Beem It has been known to close sex workers accounts if they receive payments which are obviously sexual in nature/are for a sexual service. Therefore I would strongly suggest to all clients that they put the date or shopping into the for section on Beem It, so that neither accounts get shut down. Again that we are in a time in which we have to put fake references on our bank statements or online transactions (and use words like seggs or s*x worker instead of being able to say Sex Work on instragram/Facebook in 2021, is ridiculous)

Eftpos

Eftpos short for electronic funds transfer to point of sale, more commonly known as credit and debit card machines.

Problems/instances of financial discrimination

I know very few, if any sex workers who have an Eftpos machine, and those who have had them have often had to hide their industry type from their bank. From reading the Eros report into financial discrimination towards sex businesses, I know that those who work in the adult industry pay higher fees to hire their Efpos machines as there is the belief that due to the nature of our work, as an industry, we will face higher chargebacks, customers saying that they didn’t receive products/services and we are seen as a moral risk. When I queried this with a payment processor, there was no statistics that were provided which stated that this was the case in Australia. Is this because of a lack of data (I have been in the sex industry 7 years and have only known of 2 people to have a Efpos machine), I do not know?

Payment Processors

Payment processors are online facilities/programs/technlology which allow individuals and businesses to take payments online. A well known example of this is Paypal.

Problems/Instances of financial discrimination

Payment processors are notorious for refusing to allow sex workers on their platforms. Sex workers are banned from using: Paypal, Square, Stripe, Braintree. As far as I know, sex workers do not have access to a single online payment processors in Australia. This has led to sex workers not being able to take payments over the pandemic for content which they are making online, other than via Beem It. 

Summing up

Financial stability is important to many people, including sex workers. I am writing this blog, from a city in week 11 of hard lockdown and do not know when I will be able to see clients again, I have been a sex worker for 7 years and this is the longest time I have spent not seeing clients. I want to make online content and yet cannot take payments via an online payment processor and Only Fans, the largest fan based website which sex workers have helped to build, has just paused a ban on sex workers using their platform. When I am working the options I have for taking payments are: cash, Beem It, bank transfer. No online payment processor, no Efpos machine.

There are other areas of financial discrimination which I have not covered in this blog, as they themselves need separate blogs and someones with more experience in those areas, such as access to mortgages and loans, which are a complicated web for sex workers due to legislation, stigma and discrimination.