Royal Oak has yet to decide which cannabis businesses will be allowed in the city, but a new bank on Woodward Avenue is already set to offer banking for cannabis retailers and related business owners. Citizens State Bank is billed as one of only a handful of banks in the metro Detroit area to accept deposits from cannabis businesses, and there has yet to be a large rollout of such programs among other financial institutions statewide.
“Cannabis banking is a great opportunity,” said Dan Fischer, CEO of Citizens State Bank. “The reason we’ve made it part of our strategic plan is that it will be about 20% of our business because we think that market is underserved.”
“Many of (the owners) are very professional people and often have other businesses and services, and accountants and CEO’s,” he said. “They are business people in the cannabis space.”
The U.S. Congress has already passed what is called the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act to allow cannabis businesses to have traditional banking service access. The measure appears to be headed for approval in the U.S. Senate. The pending legislation protects banks from federal prosecutions for providing traditional services to legitimate cannabis operators.
Read the complete article at dailytribune.com