Nine Large Banks Flagged for “Debanking” Policies That Hit Adult Businesses — and Why the Problem Isn’t Going Away
In December 2025, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released preliminary findings from a supervisory review of “debanking” at the nine largest national banks it oversees. The OCC’s headline conclusion was blunt: across 2020–2023, these banks maintained policies that made “inappropriate distinctions” among customers based on lawful business activity — often through blanket sector restrictions or heightened internal barriers that functioned like denials of service. Featured In The February 2026 Edition Of XBIZ World For the adult industry, the report mattered for a simple reason: it put a federal banking regulator on record acknowledging what performers, creators, producers, and adjacent lawful businesses have said for years — access to basic financial services is routinely curtailed not because a customer is inherently higher-risk, but because a category of lawful work is treated as presumptively unacceptable. What the OCC said about adult entertainment restrictions The OCC’s preliminary findings document identifies “adult entertainment” as one of the industry sectors impacted by bank policies. It describes internal practices where lines of business at some banks either strictly restricted access to certain products/services or required escalated review for customers connected to “adult media and non-media” (including “products and services of a sexual…
