Hundreds of companies are thinking of applying for medical marijuana licenses as it can be a very profitable industry indeed. More banks are offering services to the cannabis industry than years ago, but a banking gap hasn’t been eliminated yet. Why? Well, cash still remains king. If you need proper cannabis banking services, this article is right for you.
Payment Processing Services for Cannabis Businesses
The majority of legal cannabis dispensaries are associated with cash payments. The reason is that US banks connected to the US Federal Reserve stay away from offering credit card processing services to cannabis businesses. Federal law considers cannabis illegal and supersedes state law.
On September 26, 2018, in California, Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 2020 into law. It’s designed to allow local governments, including towns and cities, to offer or refuse temporary cannabis licenses for events.
AB 2020 is limited to the state of California and may not be regarded as the most powerful solution, however, it’s significantly aimed at legalization. States that haven’t yet legalized cannabis for recreational purposes can take a look at California’s local and community governments deciding how temporary cannabis permits for festivals, workshops, and other events, and how communities take advantage of these events.
Overall, there’re a number of businesses that can greatly benefit from cannabis legalization. These include:
- Agricultural and cultivation
- Commercial real estate for dispensaries and grow facilities
- Compliance systems and providers
- Extraction laboratories for CBD
- Higher education concerning growing cannabis, business ethics, and sales
- Legal representation
- Merchant services
- Packaging and labeling
- Research and data services
- Specific software, e.g., point-of-sale or POS devices
Cannabis Banking Services for Merchants
The legal marijuana business accounts for billions of dollars. Commercial operators are trying to find banks that won’t shy away from them. Two of the hardships associated with cannabis businesses have to do with serious security concerns and a lack of funding.
When it comes to reliable and affordable business funding or payment processing services, they can never be a problem if you work with a creditworthy payment processing and merchant funding company like eMerchantBroker.com. By the way, the Better Business Bureau has classified EMB as an A+ payment processing company, and Card Payment Options as an A processor.
EMB, considered the nation’s top high risk credit card processor, is committed to offering only the cheapest and most secure merchant services. So, if you’re struggling to find the best cannabis banking services, just consider turning to eMerchantBroker.com.
The legal cannabis industry is growing and already accounts for billions of dollars. Only these dollars are flowing mostly the old-fashioned way. This is because the indsutry is associated with legal issues, which makes banks refuse to work with this type of businesses. Thankfully, payment processors like eMerchantBroker.com has made it so much easier for cannabis merchants to enjoy quality services for marijuana payment processing.
Apart from the hardships mentioned above, there’s a misconception around the time and effort required to develop, deploy, and maintain a compliant cannabis banking program. It’s important for the cannabis and banking industries to work together, but they don’t know how to do this.
When it comes to what specific services a cannabis business needs, the reality is that this type of businesses need to be able to access any banking resource that any other business in the country needs.
In fact, for cannabis companies, searching for and embracing banking services can be helpful for margins. It’s difficult for smaller companies to handle cash since it too expensive, and operationally extremely limiting.
Finally, cash transactions can mean a number of surcharges, both hidden and explicit. There’re also some security costs, theft risk, cash courier services, and time required for managing the flow of paper bills, and a number of other issues.
So, don’t waste your precious time and resources: just look for a reputable payment processor that can get you the right merchant account for your cannabis business so to start accepting card payments with ease.
