OnlyFans Founder Says Banks Are Responsible for Ban on Porn

OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely says the content subscription service’s upcoming block on sexually explicit content is the fault of banks, and that he’d welcome such content back if the environment changes.

In a new interview with the Financial Times, Stokely addressed the decision to stop allowing users, specifically those offering subscriptions, to share sexually explicit content starting this fall.

As he explained it, “the short answer is banks,” adding that banks continued to throw more obstacles at the company and would cite reputational risk and “refuse our business.”

“We pay over 1 million creators over $300M every month, and making sure that these funds get to creators involves using the banking sector,” Stokely said, pointing directly at the Bank of New York Mellon as one that has “flagged and rejected” all wires connected to the company. He added that JP Morgan Chase is “particularly active in closing sex worker accounts” and that UK-based Metro Bank closed its OnlyFans corporate account in 2019. The three banks denied the Times’ request for comment.

“This decision was made to safeguard their funds and subscriptions from increasingly unfair actions by banks and media companies—we obviously do not want to lose our most loyal creators,” Stokely said.

To clarify a few other points, the founder shared that the decision wasn’t implemented in an effort to make finding investors easier, and that MasterCard’s stricter rules for “professional merchants” also aren’t responsible for the change, as OF was already “fully compliant.”

Last week, Tyga announced he’s parting ways from OnlyFans, less than a year after launching his account, sharing that he’s launching his own platform called Myystar. The content service will reportedly only take 10 percent of creators’ earnings, in comparison to OnlyFans’ 20 percent.