Chase also refused to process payments for Lovability, a company that sells condoms and promotes female sexual empowerment, because condoms are “adult-oriented material” and thus a “reputational risk”. Thing is, this is completely a reaction on the bank's part, not a regulation set by the feds.

Here's what's happening: The Dodd-Frank reform says "don't deal with sketchy businesses." There's guidelines for sketchy business. The FDIC has laid one out here, the relevant one in this case, called reputation risk:

Reputation risk is the risk arising from negative public opinion. Dissatisfied customers, breaches of an institution’s policies or standards, and violations of law can potentially harm the reputation of a financial institution in the community it serves. Negative publicity involving the third party, even if it is not related to the specific third-party arrangement, presents reputation risk to a financial institution.

Does that sound like it says, "don't deal with anybody that might damage your reputation, based on public moral reservations," or is it more like, "don't deal with anybody who has a lot of pissed off customers and a bad history with the law?" To me, it sounds like the second thing. But they interpreted that clause to mean, "We now have to discriminate based on moral reservations of our customers."

And as a big "Thanks, Obama," the porn stars went down first. They're not the only ones though.

I think they're doing this because now they have to actually care about who they're doing business with. That costs them money. Before, after their client turned in that fudged report, they could sit back, kick their feet up and call it a day. Now they have to pay somebody to make sure the transaction records aren't consistent with any known schemes.

With the regulations really getting Chase down, I think they booted porn stars to stir up the pot for publicity, and to try to get a rollback on this reform, as big banks have so desperately wanted since it was first mentioned.