> This isn't some incidental detail - it's the entire reason why the banking and credit card industry doesn't want to interact with cannabis right now.

FYI - Banks do work with cannabis in states where it's legal. Those banks just can't be national banks - they have to be state ones that are regulated by the state. In other words, Chase/BoA/etc. can't touch it because they operate at the federal level and are highly regulated.

https://www.riskscout.com/post/the-state-of-cannabis-banking

The moment they’re legally allowed to they will be all over legal weed. It’s not like the finance industry has any issues profiting from other recreational substances, such as alcohol or tobacco.

Agreed. Any suggestion that “the banks won’t deal with $GROUP even though they could be making money” is an allegation that the banks aren’t actually very profit-motivated. This allegation seems unlikely to me.

As far as I can tell, the stuff the banks won’t touch is either legally risky (weed) or financially risky.

It's strange. On one hand banks and payment processors have been shown to bow to public pressure and turn away money in exchange for a little PR, but on the other hand banks also have no problems working with terrorists and cartels which are very much legally risky.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2012/07/16/hsbc-h...

The financially risky stuff they're usually willing to take on too, but the folks providing the service usually find the associated interchange fees unreasonable.

Exactly. Companies like CCBill specialize in high-risk transactions and will handle anything legal, but your fees might be as high as 14.5%!

https://ccbill.com/pricing

So they why do payment processors (paypal in particular) avoid firearms stuff? That's big business and the consumers involved pretty much all have discretionary income by definition. You'd think they'd be all over that.

Because gun purchases are a high chargeback risk; this is explicitly the reason that PayPal gives. I had a colleague of mine have a debit card stolen from them and then used to try and purchase a handgun. Given the criminal utility of a firearm purchased under a fake name with a stolen card, I doubt this is a rare problem.

(PayPal also cannot be used for cigarettes or porn, so they have a policy of avoiding what they see as high risk items, including items regularly handled by other card professors)

On the flip side Amazon will sell all kinds of firearm related accessories, just not the firearm itself or ammunition, presumably because they're not actually a FFL and can't handle the legal requirements.

Cannabis is legal in Canada, and indeed you can use credit and debit cards to buy it without any issue whatsoever.

Absolutely.

My last employer was just as happy to bid on jobs building grow ops as they were solar farms, all while maintaining the insurance mandated drug testing policy.

You don't give the banking industry enough credit here. They are involved in designing the legislation/regulations governing themselves.

The market for legal marijuana projected to be $100B by 2030. If the banks want a piece of that pie, then they will change the rules and "fix" the problem.

https://flowhub.com/cannabis-industry-statistics