For Colorado banks that do business with marijuana-related clients, life got a little easier last week.
The state’s banking division announced that it will no longer require financial institutions to duplicate suspicious activity reports, or SARS, Colorado if they’ve already been filed with the federal government.
According to a report by the Boulder Daily Camera, the commissioner has been looking for ways to cut regulations on banks, and this is an area he identified as repetitive.
Regardless of the reason, it could make it easier for Colorado cannabis businesses to find financial institutions willing to work with them now, especially given that plenty of banks were already providing services to marijuana clients.
Granted, that could be a little much to hope for, since bank officials are notoriously averse to any kind of risk. And Colorado’s banking commissioner said he still advises banks to file SARS reports with the federal government for every single cannabis-related transaction, just to be on the safe side.
