Could be wrong, but I think it's less puritanical, and more that transactions with these types of vendors are overwhelmingly fraudulent and charged-back. It's a big liability for the processors.
It could also be because, as suggested in another comment[1], banks are getting regulated in a way that the payment processors simply don't want to deal with.
This is a common reason that’s given, but I haven’t seen any proof. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is surprisingly overblown and the industry doesn’t actually have that bad a problem with charge backs
I wouldn't call it a "massive issue". If you have a reputable ecom business your rates of chargeback and fraud should be quite a bit under 1%. Adult businesses however can have triple or even greater than that.
If you can't absorb 0.5% in loss, then you shouldn't be in ecommerce. Same thing as being in bricks and mortar, if you can't absorb shoplifting you shouldn't be in business.
Not relevant in this case, but for low margin physical goods the math can be much worse. You're out the cost of the good, the taxes and fees associated, the margin, and the chargeback fee. For food delivery middlemen, for example, it's a really rough game
This doesn't make any sense at all. Pick a subscription porn site right now, any one, and go try to sign up. You don't have to follow through, just get to the payment page and don't click submit. They all take Visa and MasterCard.
CCbill itself couldn't exist if Visa and MasterCard didn't let it process payments for porn.
The porn industry is regulated, believe it or not. What happens is that financial system support is withdrawn from places that provide avenues for exploitation of children or victims of human traffickers. I expect OF didn't think they could meet recordkeeping requirements or assume the liabilities of doing so incorrectly.
It's not about a flat yes/no to porn, it's about the level of arbitrary rules, shifting policies, banned keywords etc etc that Mastercard inflict on any businesses that include adult content, that make operating a business nearly impossible.
These rules are getting worse because MC's head has decided to give in to the scaremongering by far right religious group Exodus Cry.
Because CCbill can do nothing if MasterCard puts pressure on them, and MasterCard are putting pressure on adult content businesses and have been for years.
I guess I just don't understand how payment processing works in this domain: are you saying MasterCard is basically saying that their credit cards cannot be used to purchase adult services such as these?
Mastercard (and Visa and AmEx and Discover) do not want their networks to be used by merchants selling pornography.
I would think the only reason is the chargeback/fraud rates are too high in this type of business, as well as not wanting to be involved in a business where there may be a high chance of illegal content.
>The banks will now have to ensure that sellers require “clear, unambiguous and documented consent” in adult content, the payments network said in a blog post Wednesday. The firms will also be required to ensure websites document the age and verify the identity of anyone depicted in pictures and videos as well as those uploading the content.
>“The banks that connect merchants to our network will need to certify that the seller of adult content has effective controls in place to monitor, block and, where necessary, take down all illegal content,” John Verdeschi, Mastercard’s senior vice president of customer engagement and performance, said in the post.
Allowing merchants to sell pornography is probably not worth the hassle for the card networks.
Sounds like MasterCard is in fact fine with merchants selling pornography, but the merchants aren't willing to do so on MasterCard's extremely reasonable terms.
Have you got a reference to that? the terms that were quoted in the grandparent comment do seem extremely reasonable:
>The banks will now have to ensure that sellers require “clear, unambiguous and documented consent” in adult content, the payments network said in a blog post Wednesday. The firms will also be required to ensure websites document the age and verify the identity of anyone depicted in pictures and videos as well as those uploading the content.
>“The banks that connect merchants to our network will need to certify that the seller of adult content has effective controls in place to monitor, block and, where necessary, take down all illegal content,” John Verdeschi, Mastercard’s senior vice president of customer engagement and performance, said in the post.
The thing I don't understand is if those quoted terms above are the rules that onlyfans is falling foul of, then wouldn't it be easier to build a tracked system for documenting consent e.t.c. rather than banning things.
That would seem like a better strategy for OnlyFans since it seems like their entire business model will be in jeopardy without this.
I wonder if they want to do this, and then turn around and say "we've listened to the community and we're gonna integrate this consent system instead" so it won't be treated so negatively or something?
I am upset, but not at the private companies. I am upset at politicians for not getting the ball rolling on an electronic payment method that works like cash in the interest of its citizens.
I suspect that their aversion to adult services payments might be based less on moral qualms than on elevated levels of chargebacks with said services.
"Why, honey! I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA why there is a charge for a Swedish Penis Pump on our Credit Card bill. An evil hacker must have gotten ahold of my card. I shall have the charges reversed at once!", etc.
> I suspect that their aversion to adult services payments might be based less on moral qualms than on elevated levels of chargebacks with said services.
Mastercard demands a lot of keyword blocks that are pretty definitely too obscure to be chargeback related.
MasterCard has two customers: card issuers (banks, usually) and merchants (through payment processors like CCBill, usually). MasterCard is saying that CCBill will lose access to the MasterCard payment network if they serve customers dealing in sexually explicit content.
Here is opportunity #3928 for Stripe to step in and earn their valuation and flex their payment muscle and allow adult payments.