There’s a difference with cannabis shops because that’s actually still federally illegal. As such, the required business accounts and tax documents required to use a national payment processor are often not forthcoming. It’s a low level regulation that you can’t generally tell a federal bank you’d like an account to store the proceeds of a federal crime.
With porn, the legal standards and protections are pretty well established. As long as the company is in possession of the required tax documents and business accounts, there’s no legal risk beyond the standard due diligence they need to do for every customer. Visa isn’t generally liable if a tire shop is discovered to be breaking a non-financial law. What processors don’t want is to have their brand attached to something that they worry could make them look bad.
It’s not even legal risk. It’s brand risk.
There’s a difference with cannabis shops because that’s actually still federally illegal. As such, the required business accounts and tax documents required to use a national payment processor are often not forthcoming. It’s a low level regulation that you can’t generally tell a federal bank you’d like an account to store the proceeds of a federal crime.
With porn, the legal standards and protections are pretty well established. As long as the company is in possession of the required tax documents and business accounts, there’s no legal risk beyond the standard due diligence they need to do for every customer. Visa isn’t generally liable if a tire shop is discovered to be breaking a non-financial law. What processors don’t want is to have their brand attached to something that they worry could make them look bad.