Aug 7, 2019
With seven in 10 Americans living in a jurisdiction where local laws permit recreational or medicinal marijuana use, banks are increasingly focused on providing banking services to cannabis-related businesses in a way that improves public safety, reduces tax evasion and supports local economic growth. On the latest episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, Mark Haden talks about how Colorado National Bank developed a program to provide deposit services to cannabis-related customers in its home market of Denver.
On the podcast, Haden discusses:
- His bank’s evaluation of the 2014 Financial Crimes Enforcement Network guidance on serving marijuana-related businesses and its consultation with regulators.
- How the bank sweeps most marijuana-related deposits off its balance sheet in order to be nimble should the regulatory situation change.
- The bank’s enhanced monitoring system to track marijuana-related cash and why it does not lend to or provide payments system access to these customers.
- The importance of defining the kind of marijuana-related entities a bank might consider serving, including directly involved businesses, vendors to the cannabis industry and individual employees and owners.