A growing number of Banks and Credit Unions have begun to serve legal pot businesses taking note of the boom in sales ($6.7 billion in 2016). Politicians like Elizabeth Warren are also starting to push to allow marijuana vendors to handle noncash payments in order to deter theft and tax evasion.
“You’re starting to see a tendency, a healthy capitalistic tendency, for banks and credit unions that know they are missing out on or losing money by not working with marijuana businesses,” said Chistov. And now Honest Marijuana, true to its name, can be honest with its bank about the product it makes. While Chistov wouldn’t disclose the name of its new banking partner, he said it was a bank like any other, except there are extra compliance procedures for both parties; the grow house must do extra reporting work, which the bank accesses regularly. The influx of competition has also lowered the fees for the grow house; Honest Marijuana now pays about 1% for payment processing, down from 4.5% it paid previously.
https://www.cujournal.com/news/how-the-payments-industry-came-to-accept-legal-marijuana