Matthew Roberts just wanted to keep using his EFTPOS facility.
For several years, the black device provided by Australian fintech Mint Payments had been allowing his clients to pay for his sexual services using their credit or debit cards.
“About half my clients are paying with cards now,” Mr posRoberts, a Victorian-based sole trader, tells ABC News.
“If I was to only work in cash, I’d lose about half of my income.”
The curveball came in 2021 when Mint suddenly asked Mr Roberts to re-apply to use the small handheld device.
Mr Roberts was honest with Mint during this process and still recalls the phone conversation where he told one of the company’s hotline professionals that he was self-employed as a sex worker.
“There was about 10 seconds of silence, and then (the person) hung up,” Mr Roberts recalls.
“I felt humiliated. I was shocked. And I was speechless.
Mint soon afterwards emailed Mr Roberts to tell him the fintech’s risk management team now considered his business to be within “a restricted category”.
The humiliation dragged on into 2022, when Mint sent another letter to Mr Roberts, indicating its denial came down to the banking institution that facilitated its back-end transactions, which it had recently switched.
“Unfortunately, according to the contractual terms and conditions of our current acquirers, we are unable to provide our services to you in relation to this application,” a letter sent in June 2022 noted.
“It would cause Mint Payments to be in breach of its contracts with our acquirers.”
The crucial timing of Mint’s formal denial
Mint’s final denial of services to Mr Roberts in June 2022 came just one month after a crucial milestone for sex workers in Victoria.
In May 2022, the state passed anti-discrimination protections as part of its broader decriminalisation of sex work and associated providers like brothels.
Matthew, an advocate for sex worker rights, had been one of the people cheering on these changes in the public gallery of state parliament.
Knowing his new rights, he decided to take on Mint.
Maurice Blackburn’s lawyers knew they potentially could set a new precedent when Mr Roberts walked into the national law firm’s Melbourne office to discuss his EFTPOS rejection.
“We thought it was a really important case to run,” the firm’s principal lawyer Jennifer Kanis told ABC News.
Maurice Blackburn ended up taking both Mint and its acquirer First Data Merchant Solutions Australia to the Magistrates Court of Victoria, with a challenge under the state’s newly amended Equal Opportunity Act 2010.
“The respondents defence was essentially that it was a risky business because they thought that it was prone to money laundering,” Ms Kanis says.
The case eventually settled out of court under confidential terms that ABC News has not seen.
However, Maurice Blackburn and Mr Roberts said they have been given permission under those terms to speak about the case’s broad outcome.
“It was a long process. It was stressful. It was emotional,” Mr Roberts says.
“But I think it was worth it because we ultimately got both companies to flip their policies and their blanket ban on sex work.”
And the sex worker has his little black EFTPOS machine back.
“Interestingly, when financial service providers deny these financial services, it again has the effect of driving the industry underground.”
Why a win in one state doesn’t make it easier for other sex workers
Mint and First Data’s owner FISERV both declined interviews.
Mint said it had no comment, besides that it complied with the rules of its acquiring partners, while FISERV told ABC News that it was “pleased to have reached an agreement” with Mr Roberts.
“(We) are committed to assessing all applications on their merits and in accordance with our legal obligations,” they added.
Maurice Blackburn’s Ms Kanis says the anti-discrimination protections for sex workers recently brought into play in Victoria were crucial in resolving Mr Roberts’s case against Mint and its acquirer.
“It would have been very difficult to fight this case under the old laws,” she adds.
More states have been moving towards decriminalisation and anti-discrimination protections, with Queensland to do this from August 2024.
The state government says this is an “evidence based” move that will bring greater oversight to the sector and protect workers who are currently operating illegally.
It’s been mostly welcomed, however, some conservative groups such as the Australian Christian Lobby said the only winners will be “pimps and brothel owners”.
Nationally, there is today a patchwork of rules, with many states still giving sex workers little to no anti-discrimination protection and some still classifying sex work as illegal, according to analysis from advocacy group Scarlett Alliance.
“If it’s unlawful, it does make it very difficult for the workers to get banking services,” Ms Kanis says.
That has been the experience of Mary-Anne Kenworthy.
The woman who dubs herself as Australia’s first openly loud and proud madam has operated a brothel in the centre of Perth for decades, despite them being illegal under Western Australian state laws.
In that time she has faced raids, unsuccessful prosecutions for prostitution by police, and today appears to operate along with other brothel owners in Western Australia under a blind eye policy with local enforcement agencies.
A WA state government spokesperson declined to comment on that situation.
With her business illegal under the law, Langtrees Perth has little recourse to fight back against the denial of financial services when it still regularly happens.
The latest example was 12 months ago when Ms Kenworthy says they were dropped by the global credit card provider Amex due to an unproven allegation that Langtrees Perth was at risk of stolen card use from clients.
She also says the brothel takes stolen card fraud seriously and already makes all people who use cards enter a PIN to decrease the chances of this happening.
Amex did not respond to the specifics of Langtrees Perth’s case by publication deadline.
Ms Kenworthy says less than one per cent of the clients who come into Langtrees use Amex cards and that it is “not worth (her) effort to fight” the company’s denial of service.
“Personally, I don’t give two knickers about Amex,” she says.
However, the industry legend says the credit card company’s denial of service shows the broader issues impacting the Western Australian sex industry, where workers are not supported by anti-discrimination protections.
Financial discrimination rife
The people who provide sexual services at Langtrees Perth – who operate as sole traders that rent out a bedroom – regularly report financial discrimination back to Ms Kenworthy.
“I know four girls at the moment that are going away every second week of their life to work in fly-in fly-out mining just to get a wage slip to get a loan to buy a house,” she says.
“They’ve got the deposit, they’ve got tax paid on sex income, and the bank’s not recognising the sex income as legitimate income.”
Ms Kenworthy “blames the government first and foremost” for this “horrendous” situation, and believes it is on policymakers to make it easier for sex industry professionals and financial service providers to do business together.
“They’ve created the problem and buried their head in the sand,” she says.
“I’ve been here 43 years and the Western Australian government have bought the issue (of decriminalisation) up four times and wasted a fortune.
“We should have a standard law across all of Australia.”
A spokesperson for the WA government said it is not currently considering amending the state’s Prostitution Act.
“Any future reforms in this area will be undertaken with the full support, and in consultation with, the Cabinet and the community of Western Australia,” they added.
Banking institutions blame the patchwork of rules on their denial
Banking institutions blame the patchwork of rules on their denial
As states such as Western Australia stick their stilettos in, major banks are blaming the patchwork of rules and illegalities around part of sex work on their blanket denial of services.
One of Australia’s big four banks NAB – which markets itself as the bank for business – does accept applications from sex workers but has a blanket policy against escort agencies and brothels.
That is despite these businesses being allowed under licensing in some parts of the country.
In a statement, NAB said this was not a moral stance, but because the bank deems these sorts of businesses at high risk for modern slavery, tax evasion, money laundering and the proceeds of crime.
NAB also pointed to the “complexity of laws, licensing and oversight regimes” across Australia.
Other financial service providers including Commonwealth Bank, payments system Tyro, and Amex said they assessed applications from the sector on a “case by case basis”.
“When businesses choose to accept American Express, they agree to follow our policies and the laws and regulations of the country where they operate,” the credit card provider said.
Financial services firms on notice
Maurice Blackburn’s Ms Kanis says financial companies that deny services in places now covered by anti-discrimination laws should rethink if they are breaking the law.
“We’re really happy to see that those laws have stood up (in Victoria),” she says.
“It is a really important question for state legislators to consider whether they are putting people within their state in vulnerable positions because sex work is still unlawful or brothels are still unlawful.
“I really commend Matthew for the work that he’s done to put himself on the line.”
Mr Roberts says he hasn’t always felt so comfortable speaking publicly about a still stigmatised profession but that he hopes this will continue to break down barriers.
“It’s actually taken me many years to come up to the courage to speak about what I experienced.
“I have decided to come forward because I got so tired of seeing all my friends and colleagues in the industry, suffering from similar discrimination.”