Citibank Closes Accounts Associated with Adult

The Chatsworth, California branch of Citibank has recently, proactively closed some of its accounts because they were operated by organizations that Citibank deemed “not within their target market.”

Kimberly Wilson, founder and CEO of Inpulse TV, told AVN.com that three of her accounts with Citibank - Inpulse Pictures, Inpulse TV and Inpulse Digital - have all been picked to be closed, as of January 9.

Wilson was notified by letter that the accounts she has had with Citibank since 2003 will soon be terminated. When Wilson pressed Citibank to find out why the accounts were being closed, she was reportedly told by the Chatsworth Citibank financial center manager that since Wilson’s companies are associated with the Adult Entertainment Industry (Inpulse TV is an Adult cable network created by women, for women), they were not within Citibank’s target audience, and thus her bank accounts were being terminated.

Wilson said that Citibank employees also alluded to her that Inpulse accounts were not the only ones that the bank would be closing.

“I explained to Citibank that Inpulse is a completely legitimate company run completely by women, and that I’ve had these accounts since 2003,” said Wilson. She plans on taking further action on the matter.

When contacted, Citibank had no comment.

The adult entertainment industry is estimated to employ in excess of 15,000 people in California alone, a huge amount residing in the proverbial epicenter of adult, Chatsworth. That population is largely responsible for generating the 12 billion dollars that the adult entertainment industry has been estimated to net, just in 2005.

It looks like Citibank has its work cut out for them.