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#2114038 - 01/12/17 05:24 PM Sex Toys - You'll love this one!
Rollerman Offline
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Joined: Mar 2006
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We have a business coming to us looking for banking services because their existing bank, upon learning of the death of one of the principles of the business, took the opportunity to tell the business customer that they could no longer service their accounts because there was a regulation that prohibits banking businesses that sell sex toys. The business is a lingerie shop and carries some toys as well. Honestly, I don't even know where to begin to look.

Is anyone aware of a regulation that would speak to this?

As always, thanks in advance.

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#2114056 - 01/12/17 06:22 PM Re: Sex Toys - You'll love this one! Rollerman
Rocky P Offline
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Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 7,656
Florida
Reg, NO, policy, yes.

The bank can have a policy indicating that they want to have as customers those that do not carry a reputational risk.
Issue, defining reputational risk.
There is no Fair Deposit law (yet).
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#2114154 - 01/13/17 02:43 PM Re: Sex Toys - You'll love this one! Rollerman
Elwood P. Dowd Offline
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Elwood P. Dowd
Joined: Aug 2001
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Quote:
...tell the business customer that they could no longer service their accounts because there was a regulation that prohibits banking businesses that sell sex toys.


That might make them wonder where all those people with the big signs next to the expressway and the businesses in the seedy part of town with blacked out windows actually bank.

As indicated, there is no legal prohibition. Yet, the FDIC (in its infinite wisdom) once published a list of customers associated with "high risk" activity that included merchants selling dating services, escort services, and pornography. It's not too big a leap to say that selling sex toys poses an equivalent risk of money laundering. (The FDIC later disavowed the list and deleted it from their publication.)

Today, the pendulum has swung to "de-risking;" refusing to provide banking services to a customer simply because of the nature of the customer's business. FIL 5-2015 basically indicates its a bad thing to refuse to do business with any customer without a customer specific analysis of the risks posed.

Frankly, from what I've seen (or what I haven't seen) I think this is nothing but pure posturing on the part of the agency. If you don't want to bank them because you don't want to bank them, no one is going to care.

[I would be sincerely interested in being corrected by bankers who say the agency has criticized them or at least warned them about de-risking.]
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#2114165 - 01/13/17 03:20 PM Re: Sex Toys - You'll love this one! Rollerman
rlcarey Offline
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rlcarey
Joined: Jul 2001
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Galveston, TX
Ken: "As indicated, there is no legal prohibition."

Banking them - no. Selling them in Alabama however is illegal.
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#2114803 - 01/19/17 09:35 PM Re: Sex Toys - You'll love this one! Rollerman
John Burnett Offline
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John Burnett
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Cape Cod
Originally Posted By Rollerman
The business is a lingerie shop and carries some toys as well. Honestly, I don't even know where to begin to look.
Look straight ahead and just keep walking!
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