In our modern days, you don’t have to use only cash to obtain goods or services. You can easily pay for everything from groceries to plane tickets using a credit card, smartphone terminal like Square, or an app that transfers payment when you wave your phone at a register.
Cash Vs Cashless
In 2016, one of the payment processors carried out a survey by asking 1.000 consumers about their preferred payment method. 40% chose credit cards, while 35% preferred debit cards, and only 11% reported they were using cash. Consumers’ preference for credit cards grew by 5% over the same survey’s results from 2015, while the results for debit cards dropped by 6%.
However, there is an industry where the adoption of new payment methods isn’t that easy. This is the adult industry.
For strip clubs, accepting credit cards is a big problem of how they operate. Almost all accept cards for drink tabs, cover charges, and lap dances. There are individual dancers who use apps like Square. When it comes to independent escorts, they don’t have the infrastructure of a club as a backup. While independent escorts are running their own business, opening a business account could put their personal information at risk by making it easily accessible to customers.
It should also be mentioned that, for example, in New York, appointments with call girls and escort agent employees are often arranged online, and digital transactions are no longer a rare thing as it was in the past.
Getting an Adult Merchant Account for Business
Those involved in the adult sector often face challenges when accepting cashless payments. These include terminated accounts, and more.
Adult business owners should know that there are reputable payment processors like emerchantbroker.com that specialize in the high risk industry and can easily approve them for adult merchant accounts, including an escort merchant account, for their high risk business. EMB is voted the #1 high risk merchant services provider in the US and has an A+ rating with the BBB.
When PayPal opened its virtual doors in 2001, sex industry workers were among its 1st customers. However, things have changed in recent years: the company, which is owned by eBay, closes or freezes the accounts of any website promoting prostitution or pornography with a recognizable “Pay Now” button.
Even if making fetish videos, performing on webcam, or being a phone sex operator are legal jobs, the majority of banks aren’t willing to work with these types of businesses. So, getting a merchant account for the mentioned businesses can be rather challenging if they don’t apply to the right high risk specialists in the field.