Colorado Launches Array of Marijuana Banking Efforts

After over six years of limited movement at the state level and with Congress currently stalled, Colorado lawmakers and other officials have launched several campaigns to provide more guidance and protection for financial intuitions that provide services to the state’s legal marijuana industry.

Although currently legal in Colorado and ten other states, as well as Washington, D.C., recreational marijuana businesses haven’t been cleared for banking by the federal government. But on Monday, February 3, Governor Jared Polis and the state Department of Regulatory Agencies announced initiatives to “increase the number of financial service providers in Colorado who serve the state’s legal marijuana and industrial hemp industries.”

“As the first state to establish a legal marijuana industry and one of the first to implement an industrial hemp program, Colorado has become a national economic leader in the cannabis industry,” Polis says in a statement announcing the moves. “We are excited to release a bold, forward-thinking roadmap to provide much-needed guidance, clarity and support to state-chartered financial service providers that work with or are interested in working with the state-legal cannabis industry.” [Read more at Westword]