How Do I Sign California Banking Credit Memo

How do i industry sign banking california credit memo

this video is about banking in the cannabis industry in california this is part two of two [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Applause] i hope everyone watched part one of my two-part series on banking in the cannabis industry a lot of part one was about pitfalls and potential areas of concern where bank fraud and similar matters can occur either uh intentionally or unintentionally when cannabis licensees are trying to access uh the the banking system uh this is just a little section of the coal memo that i chopped out and i wanted to emphasize how what a negative light this paints uh licensees in uh in our industry so the coal memo reiterates congress's determination that marijuana is a dangerous drug and that the illegal distribution and sale of marijuana is a serious crime that provides a significant source of revenue to large-scale criminal enterprises gangs and cartels i don't know about you um i am not in a gang or a cartel uh nor am i in a large-scale criminal uh enterprise so the coal memo notes that doj is committed to enforcement of the csa that's the controlled substances act consistent with those determinations it also notes that doj is committed to using its investigative and prosecutorial resources to address the most significant threats in the most effective consistent and rational way in furtherance of those objectives the call memo provides guidance to doj attorneys and law enforcement to focus their enforcement resources on persons or organizations whose conduct interferes with any one or more of the following important priorities these are the coal memo priorities so we all know preventing the distribution of marijuana to minors nobody wants that except the miners preventing revenue from the sale of marijuana from going to criminal enterprises gangs and cartels nobody in our legal uh regulated industry in california wants to be dealing with cartels uh this is a key one uh prevent preventing the diversion of marijuana from states where it is legal under state law in some form to other states where it's not legal in some form preventing state authorized marijuana activity from being used as a cover or pretext for the trafficking of other illegal drugs or other illegal activity preventing violence and the use of firearms in the cultivation and distribution of marijuana strongly opposed in california in most cases preventing drug driving and the exacerbation of other adverse public health consequences associated with marijuana use preventing the growing of marijuana on public lands and the attendant uh public safety and environmental dangers posed by marijuana production on public lands um what they're talking about here are would be cartel gross and finally preventing marijuana possession or use on federal property personally i live very close to an army base and uh when you go on the army base it's very clear that the federal government does not want cannabis on a military base in this video i'm going to go more into workable options for cannabis licensees in california i'm going to focus on the of access to credit unions in california which are also not uh required to follow fdic guidelines so in this country um most people know we have a deep deeply and widely rooted financial services industry and you know there's there's banks there's mortgage lenders there's credit card companies there's there's all kinds of corporations and and organizations and individuals who are providing services which include uh you know banking and savings and making loans etc there are also some smaller financial organizations which are typically servicing a smaller community or a smaller industry these are known as credit unions unlike banks which are regulated on a federal basis credit unions around the united states are regulated by i guess you'd call it a trade industry organization uh it does have government ties it's called the national credit union administration so the national credit union association or ncua has strict guidelines for its members just like an industry regulated industry like banking that's regulated by the federal government the the difference is that in the case of the ncua the credit unions actually do have options which enable them to provide financial services to licensed cannabis companies in states where cannabis is legal so whether we're talking about california or washington or some other state where the state has legalized either medical only or medical and adult use or recreational use cannabis there are in i would say almost all these states there are credit unions which are providing banking services to licensed cannabis companies um before a licensee here in california thinks that they can just run down to a federal credit union and plop a bunch of money down in front of the teller and say hey i want to open an account there is a lot of due diligence and compliance reporting required in order to open up one of these bank accounts in my personal experience uh and this was i believe in the prop 215 pre-prop 64 world i'm thinking this was probably mid to late 2017. i was working with a large cannabis company in california and my primary um the primary project that i was working on at the time was getting some banking going so uh at that time there were a number a small number but a number of uh community credit unions which were in most cases located near cultivation so you know we're talking about northern california wine country we're talking about uh southern california indoor growing and also manufacturing and retail but there were a few options the one that i ended up concentrating on was a very well-known credit union in southern california the compliance checks and the process that we had to go through as a as an organization took seven months to fully document uh to fully flesh out all of our financial statements to provide sufficient uh background information on all beneficial owners of all corporate entities involved um in this licensed operation um it literally took seven months so um it's an arduous process it's a uh can be a labor-intensive process uh however just like in my earlier video part one about cannabis banking it's super super important to always tell the truth to provide full disclosure to this in this case a credit union who over time becomes a very important uh partner of a licensed cannabis company so all is not lost basically i i don't want to leave an impression as i may have from part one of this video series that there's no legal and operational options available to licensees in california because they're in fact are a couple of different options but again it's important to play by the rules it's also very important to have accurate and up-to-date reporting and documentation that's available at a moment's notice for going through the application and the compliance process with one of these credit unions so i i feel like a part three to the cannabis banking series is probably going to be necessary at some point but for now i'd like to leave you again as i often try and do with the takeaway there are more and more options available to licensees in california if if you have any questions shoot send me an email and i'm happy to work with you and perhaps point you in the right direction uh with regard to uh who would be a good fit for your organization um as always thank you very much for watching my video uh please do subscribe to my video channel on youtube if you find my content valuable uh do hit the like thumb when you can and also uh after subscribing please do uh hit the notification bell so you always know when i have uploaded new content which by the way takes place almost on a daily basis now so hopefully there's a good stream of information uh to reach people who are looking for it and again uh if you need to reach me directly please contact me through my website thepotcomp.com thanks again you