Cannabis companies may not be able to work with the JPMorgan Chases and Citigroups of the world anytime soon, but that hasn’t stopped small banks from flooding into the space.
On the surface, it would seem that the industry’s prospects for being able to bank like normal companies has taken a hit. U.S. Representative Ed Perlmutter of Colorado, the biggest supporter of legislation that would liberalize rules for cannabis banking, just announced his retirement. The SAFE Banking Act he backed stalled late last year. Meanwhile, Visa Inc. sent a memo to banks saying that so-called cashless ATMs — a workaround used by some dispensaries to avoid dealing in cash — weren’t copacetic.