There aren’t any banks in the state currently serving medical marijuana dispensaries for fear of losing their FDIC licenses.
Orlando-based First Green Bank is taking a major risk that no other bank is doing in the state — it’s accepting medical marijuana money.
Banks have been steering clear of the hassle and headache of being put under a microscope by the U.S. Department of Justice and Homeland Security, but First Green Bank is taking on the industry head on.
“As far as we know, we are the only one in the industry banking with marijuana dispensaries,” Ken LaRoe, founder and chairman of First Green Bank, told Orlando Business Journal.
There currently aren’t any true guidelines for how a bank should go about doing business with marijuana dispensaries. “There is no rule or law because it’s federally illegal,” LaRoe said.
However, there are U.S. Department of Justice guidelines the bank follows. “We don’t ever touch the cash or allow [dispensaries] to deposit it,” LaRoe said. “We require them to use the armored car service we have vetted to go to the dispensaries.”
LaRoe explained the armored trucks p ick up the cash directly from the dispensary and carry it to the nearest Federal Reserve location — First Green Bank never has to touch it, the cash never comes into the bank’s facility.
“We track their inventory from seed to sale,” LaRoe said, adding that part of the bank’s responsibility is to make sure all the sales are done legally.
It took the bank roughly two years to implement the robust system in place, said Lex Ford, First Green Bank’s senior vice president of the medical marijuana division. First Green Bank currently banks with six of the seven licensees in Florida, including Trulieve, Green Solutions and Surterra. (See the photo gallery for a look inside Knox Medical’s Orlando cannabis dispensary.)
So why take such a major risk with so little return?
It all came from a personal experience of LaRoe’s wife. She was in a bicycling accident and suffered a traumatic brain injury. After the accident, she also developed a seizure disorder. “A friend of ours said ‘come by my house and try some marijuana.’ The marijuana helped stop her seizures,” LaRoe said. He also said his 78-year-old dad had seizures and he was able to get off his medicine by using marijuana.
LaRoe expects business to pick up as more licenses for medical marijuana dispensaries are awarded in Florida. The legal marijuana market was valued at $7.2 billion in 2016 and it’s expected to grow 17 percent annually, according to OnPointStockAlert.com.
credit:420intel.com
