It might be an old dog at 80 years old, but Salem-based Maps Credit Union is willing to try new tricks, quietly becoming a significant provider of banking services to legal cannabis operators in Oregon. After realizing that it had inadvertently opened an account with a dispensary last year, the institution made a decision to embrace the industry. Gordon Friedman of the Statesman Journal shares a lot of details about the institution, which makes its customers sign NDAs prohibiting them from discussing the bank.
Shane Saunders, Vice President of Operations for Maps explained why the institution wanted to help solve the problem of limited access to banking that plagues the cannabis industry:
The thought of some guy walking out of his business at night and going to an environment where there might be lots of people, with $25,000 in cash in his backpack to buy money orders just doesn’t sit right. We took the comments by Senator Wyden to heart when he said he does not want Oregonian businesses dragging around duffle bags of cash. And neither do we. Not in our community.
The article details the many procedures its customers must follow and the fees that they must pay in order to maintain their accounts.
Read Gordon Friedman’s “The best kept banking secret in the marijuana industry”: http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/money/business/2015/12/23/best-kept-banking-secret-marijuana-industry/76727296/
