Marijuana is now legal in some form in most U.S. states—but many banks won’t do business with cannabis companies
By Alexander Saeedy | Photos by Hannah Yoon for The Wall Street Journal
April 10, 2024
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Though marijuana is now legal in some form in most U.S. states, many banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo continue to say they don’t bank with marijuana companies because it is against federal law.
Julio Cortez/AP
Major credit-card networks such as Visa and Mastercard say they don’t process marijuana-related transactions for the same reason.
Matthew Brown/AP
Some smaller banks have started to offer services to companies, but customers say they can be unreliable. That leaves cannabis companies spending inordinate amounts of time and money moving around cash.
A marijuana dispensary owner in Los Angeles prepares a tax payment in cash. Photo: Joe C. Hong/AP
“There’s no banking capital for the regulated cannabis industry, and there’s not much actual banking either,” said Tahir Johnson, a former financial adviser in New Jersey who is preparing to open a cannabis dispensary with a bank vault in May.
Johnson won a license in 2022 to start a marijuana dispensary in his home state and opened a business account at Bank of America. But months into fundraising, the bank told him it was shutting down both his corporate account and a personal account.
Tahir Johnson sorts through product sample items.
The notification letter said he had 30 days to remove his money and didn’t give a reason for the action, he says. Johnson suspects it was because the bank learned he was building a marijuana business. Bank of America declined to comment.
Banks reported closing nearly 8,000 accounts tied to marijuana-related businesses last year, according to Treasury data.
Products at a dispensary in New York, NY. Photo: Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
But that could soon change. Several times over the years, lawmakers in the House have passed a bipartisan bill that would make it easier to bank cannabis clients.
Jose Luis Magana/AP
The Senate has never taken its version up for a vote but is expected to this year, making its advocates more optimistic than ever.
Produced by Leah Latella
Cover image: Mathew Sumner/AP
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