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cash. The major credit card networks memo and establishes a framework for banking cannabis businesses without
– American Express, Discover, running afoul of federal AML laws. It includes requirements like heightened
Mastercard and Visa – deem these due diligence and risk analyses, transaction monitoring and Suspicious Activity
transactions off limits as long as Reports on all cannabis-related transactions.
the federal government considers
cannabis an illegal drug. Things got murkier this year when former Attorney General Jeff Sessions
rescinded the department's 2013 memo known as the Cole Memo, for its author,
"This is the stance they [the card James Cole, who had been deputy attorney general when he wrote the tome.
companies] have taken. They are What followed, though, was not a massive crackdown on state-sanctioned
very clear about it," said Todd cannabis businesses and their financial services providers, as many had feared.
Fuller, executive vice president of And Sessions resignation, in November, reignited optimism that federal
Hypur. Based in Scottsdale, Ariz., crackdowns are not in the cards.
Hypur is a banking technology
startup that specializes in helping In a statement released following Sessions' resignation, the National Cannabis
financial institutions bank legitimate Industry Association, which lobbies on behalf of cannabis businesses, said it
businesses in high-risk industries, looks forward to working with his replacement. The NCIA added that it "is
like cannabis. actively working with our allies in the Senate to ensure that the need to protect
the legal cannabis industry is front and center when the future nominee is
Eide added, "We're continually going considered by the chamber."
to Visa and MasterCard [asking when
they will remove the prohibitions] Several legislative initiatives are pending in Congress that would ease federal
and they continually tell us that not cannabis strictures, and polling shows strong voter support for loosening
until federal law is changed will they those strictures. Results of an April Quinnipiac University, poll, for example,
allow it." revealed that 63 percent of adult Americans support nationwide legalization,
the highest level of support ever measured, the polling group said. Seventy
Most banks and credit unions, percent of voters oppose enforcement of federal laws against marijuana in
fearful of being called out by federal
regulators, also have stayed clear of
knowingly serving businesses that
sell cannabis and CBD products.
"There are banks and credit unions
that will board these merchants, but
they are few and far between," said
John Beebe, president of Denver-
based Celestial Payments. "It's just
not worth all the regulatory scrutiny."
Conflicting views
from Washington

The conflict between state and
federal cannabis laws has not been
lost on policymakers in Washington.
Back in 2013, the Justice Department
weighed in on the matter, issuing a
memo that instructed U.S. attorneys
not to expend resources on cannabis
businesses operating in compliance
with state regulatory schemes, but
to instead focus on drug cartels and
cross-border smuggling.

That was followed by guidance from
the Financial Crimes Enforcement
Network, the U.S. Treasury bureau
that collects and analyzes suspicious
transaction reports required by the
Bank Secrecy Act and other anti-
money laundering (AML) laws. The
FinCEN guidance references the DOJ
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