Abaca Announces Merchant Services for Hemp and CBD Businesses

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (December 11, 2020) – Since he founded his business, Ryan
Croy, co-founder of Honcho & Hoss, CBD for the Everyman, has gone through three credit card
processors – not by his choice.

“One pulled the plug on me over the weekend. One said they’d process but bailed before we
ever got up and running. One gouged us,” Croy recounts in a saga familiar to many CBD
retailers and ancillary cannabis businesses. Card processors – when you can find them – make
taking credit cards at the register and the website a continual game of cat-and-mouse.

Those are exactly the problems a new credit card processing program from one of the country’s
leading cannabis financial platforms was designed to solve. Abaca Merchant Services is now
available to CBD, hemp, cannabis ancillary, and other high-compliance businesses nationwide.
The new product offers base rates as low as 3.95 percent – and answers a number of
challenges for the business owner.

“Merchant services have long been a pain point for CBD and other high-risk businesses,” notes
Abaca CEO Dan Roda. “As with cannabis banking, the CBD financial services space has been
plagued by shutdowns, onboarding delays, compliance headaches and, as a result, high costs.”

The Abaca team is utilizing software-driven automation, artificial intelligence, and strong
banking relationships to solve these problems – just like they did with the company’s successful
cannabis banking program, now operational in nine states and growing. The resulting solution
delivers benefits the hemp and CBD industries have been clamoring for:

• Affordable base processing rates as low as 3.95%
• Rapid approval and onboarding. Approval in two days; processing within two weeks.
• Built for both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce retailers
• Technology-enabled compliance reporting that reduces retailers’ personnel time by as
  much as 95%
• A commitment to supporting the growth of the industry from a company built and
  dedicated to serve cannabis and hemp businesses

“You no longer have to worry about your processor pulling the rug out from under you,” says
Roda. “We’ve built Abaca Merchant Services as a reliable payments solution, providing a stable
revenue foundation on which to build your hemp, CBD, or ancillary cannabis businesses.”

Additionally, Abaca Merchant Services can be bundled with banking to create an integrated
financial solution – Abaca’s platform also connects hemp, CBD, and ancillary cannabis
businesses with bank accounts, insurance, access to capital, and more.

“After our CBD online store went dark multiple times due to unstable payment processors, we
switched to Abaca Merchant Services,” says Andy Iannou of Transcending Organics. “Abaca
offers fair rates but, most importantly, the service is stable. Our store has been consistent in
welcoming repeat and new customers.”

To learn more about Abaca Merchant Services, visit our website:
https://info.goabaca.com/cbd-credit-card-processing

About Abaca
Abaca connects state-legal cannabis and hemp businesses with compliant bank accounts,
lending, electronic payments, and other financial services through its financial
technology-powered cannabis banking platform. Deposit banking services are offered in
partnership with chartered banks, Members FDIC. Abaca and its partner banks are currently
accepting bank account applications from plant-touching cannabis businesses in Arkansas,
California, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma; the
company’s fintech banking platform also provides lending and payment processing solutions to
cannabis and hemp/CBD businesses nationwide. Not all products are available in all areas.
Learn more at www.GoAbaca.com .