Banking is one of the most crucial resources the state-legal cannabis industry is missing out on due to federal prohibitions. Fearing retaliation from the federal government, most financial institutions refuse to work with cannabis businesses, depriving them of financial services such as bank accounts and loans. Additionally, it forces marijuana businesses to operate on a cash-only basis, which significantly increases the risk of burglaries and robberies. However, some states have made efforts to increase access to banking services in the nascent cannabis sector in a bid to address these problems. Former chair of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) Rodney Hood says that while these efforts deserve plenty of praise, chances are they won’t be enough to change cannabis banking without congressional intervention. Speaking at an Emerging Markets Coalition about the cannabis banking dilemma, he said that this issue “demands special attention.” Cannabis has proven to be one of the fastest-growing industries in the country, generating billions of dollars in sales and creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs. If the industry is given access to banking and loan services, it has the potential to be extremely lucrative in the long term.
CannabisNewsWire, 04/18/2022 04:20:00