Source: Cannabiz Digital Magazine
Square has launched a program to process credit card payments for CBD businesses. With the movement to provide banking to cannabis on the state and federal level, the company is positioning itself to service the cannabis industry.
Yet, Square is moving quietly with discretion.
“Square is currently conducting an invite-only beta for some CBD products,” a spokesperson for the company said in an email. (Forbes.com)
Square, and others like PayPal and Stripe have held a policy to turn away cannabis related businesses. They are in a tough position to comply with federal banking laws and drug policy. Despite cannabis legalization on the state level and more recently hemp CBD legalization on the federal level in 2018 under the CBD Farm Bill, banking has been a difficult hurdle to the industry. The blanket policy for “cannabis related business” extends to hemp CBD and related industries such as bus tours or a photography website that sells photos of legal marijuana.
The good news is that the appetite for the cannabis economy is bringing bi-partisan unity:
“While some financial institutions have agreed to offer financial products to the growing hemp industry, many of them have not due to confusion over the legal status of hemp,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) wrote. “However, as hemp is no longer a controlled substance, financial institutions should feel secure in engaging with this industry.” (Forbes.com)
Statements like this plus legislation like CA SB51 and H.R.1595 are giving the green light to financial institutions to step quietly into the light.