ABSTRACT
Duffle bags of “herbaceous” smelling cash and tellers armed with copious amounts of Febreze – this is the quintessential image of the early days of cannabis banking following the release of the memorandum entitled “BSA Expectations Regarding Marijuana-Related Businesses” by the United States Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network on February 14, 2014. While nearly seven years later, the FinCEN guidance’s seven short pages remain the cornerstone of cannabis banking, which, for the purposes of this chapter refers to a cannabis-related business’s ability to transparently access depository services, financial institutions’ treatment of cannabis money has greatly evolved. This evolution is apparent in both the sophistication of various bank and credit unions’ cannabis know your customer due diligence programs and the steadily growing number of financial institutions that are safely and successfully servicing state-legal cannabis businesses, as reported by FinCEN. Nonetheless, despite sweeping national support for, and continued legalization of, the cannabis industry, regular access to banking services remains an obstacle for state-legal cannabis-related businesses, largely because of cannabis’ federal status as a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act.
