Marijuana-Friendly Oregon Bank Backs Out On Colorado Cannabusiness

Last week, Oregon-based MBank announced an unprecedented commitment to the cannabis industry that would cross state borders and give banking opportunities to ganjapreneurs in Washington, Oregon, and Colorado. Shortly following the announcement, however, bank officials dialed back their enthusiasm for the plan and formally scrapped bank accounts for Colorado cannabusinessesn, the Denver Post reports.

Oregon and Washington marijuana MBank accounts are safe, for now.

“Following national press, the volume of inquiries in Oregon, Washington and Colorado has been so overwhelming that we don’t currently have the infrastructure to adequately support all these customers,” said CEO Jef Baker on Monday. “Colorado is the farthest from our market area and the most difficult to provide… quality customer service to.”

In addition to the sheer quantity of interested businesses, another issue was MBank’s lack of a Colorado branch. The workaround for this would have been to run the potential millions of marijuana dollars from Colorado through a Federal Reserve Bank wire transfer, opening a lot of room for federal scrutiny.

Sources:

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_27398018/mbank-pulls-out-colorado-week-after-taking-cannabis

Photo Credit: Sean MacEntee

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