"We don't want your money" - the FemTech start-ups being refused financial services
New research from the CensHERship campaign uncovers discrimination in financial services
Founder Tess Cosad faced a ban from her Amazon seller page after adding the words ‘vagina’ and ‘vaginal canal’ to a product description for her at-home fertility kit Béa Fertility.
Thankfully, the ban could be overcome, but only if she replaced the word vagina with ‘birth canal’ - highly inappropriate for her potential customers who were all experiencing infertility. The word semen, by contrast, was just fine for Amazon.
Tess is one of 31 founders that the CensHERship campaign heard from who have experienced issues with accessing banking, payment provider services, ecommerce services or insurance.
In new research shared this week exclusively with The Guardian, the censHERship campaign found:
71% of founders had been refused service or refused an account
58% had an account closed
51% faced excessive scrutiny
35% faced delays in processing
19% faced higher fees or charges
These issues extended across payment providers, bank accounts, ecommerce platforms and insurers.
The impact of these experiences is significant:
81% lost time resolving issues
65% lost revenue
52% increased operational costs
42% customer dissatisfaction
42% delayed launch
In specific examples, the research heard from sexual wellness start-up Hanx which had its payment provider pull down its account within 48 hours of launching the company. And also Knude Society, which paid well over the odds for insurance - up to 150 times the going rate.
As Clio Wood, co-founder of CensHERship told The Guardian, this issue is yet another barrier facing FemTech companies:
“The amount of time and money FemTech companies waste on trying to resolve these issues significantly sets them back and, in too many cases, destroys them altogether.”
Anna O’Sullivan, founder of FutureFemHealth and co-founder of CensHERship said:
“We wanted to quantify the anecdotal stories we were hearing from founders and demonstrate that they aren’t alone in what they are facing.
“Our mission at CensHERship is to bring together and harness a collective voice so that we can highlight these important issues and bring about change.”