Mastercard demands US cannabis shops stop accepting debit cards
Mastercard demands US cannabis shops stop accepting debit cards
www.bbc.com
Mastercard demands US cannabis shops stop accepting debit cards
99 comments
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Mastercard doesn't give a crap about weed, and aren't trying to control anything. They don't want to be a part of federally illegal transactions. They want to follow the law, because they're a big business and it's dangerous not to. This is simple a result of the fact that weed is federally illegal - any other move on mastercard's part would be irresponsible at this time.
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Cannabis? Oh man we can't break the law. Better not chance it.
Some weird Bitcoin mortgage backed security being bought by Goldman Sachs to resell to their pension holders? Oh so good.
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There should be a law prohibiting these payment companies to be picky when it comes to legal transactions.
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Unfortunately, these are illegal according to the federal government, which regulates these financial institutions
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Cough "regulates" cough
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I agree on a level, but interstate commerce laws mean that these institutions are held by federal regulation to not accept these payments. As others here have said, the real issue is marijuana needs to just be legalized on the fed level. Then this wouldn’t be an issue.
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This is sort of off topic but the constraints credit card companies put on porn is ridiculous. Cannabis, sadly, is illegal federally. Porn is legal everywhere in the country.
I'd very much support legislation that required payment processors to not discriminate against any firm provided the business transaction is legal.
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Seriously! I have an extremely specific fetish that has been fucked up multiple times by credit card companies.
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Part of the problem here is that marijuana is federally illegal and this opens processors to a lot of potential risk
Also, processors definitely do not want restrictions on what they can process. That's all via public demand and legislation.
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What risk? You can't arrest a financial bro unless they steal from the rich.
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They might insofar as companies all become pro-regulation once they get big because it raises the barriers to entry for potential competition.
But absolutely, a lot of the problem are people who think "Oh that fetish is gross, therefore it should be restricted!" No. It's gross to you so don't watch videos of it.
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I hope people remember these companies and politicians who attempted to blockade Cannabis businesses when it is invariably made federally legal. They will more than likely never face the consequences of their stupidity while they turn a blind eye to armed robberies that are specifically caused by these policies yet get fat on the tax revenue regardless.
The idea that we need to plead fealty to these degenerates to get them to take common sense approaches to issues that the majority of the voter base has agreed on for a decade is ridiculous. No matter how anybody personally feels about Cannabis consumption it never has and never will go away. Prohibition doesn't work, and attempting to legislate other peoples ethics is a losing gambit.
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They won't. People are dumb as hell and have extremely short memories.
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Time to change lines of business. "We're a taco shop, but you can buy weed here in compliamce with local laws. Sorry if you receipt just says TACOS no matter what you buy. We're working on that."
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Basically what dispensaries in Washington, DC do. Everything is a "donation" or an "art purchase" and the pot is a "gift". Total nonsense, but it mostly works, because DC intends to legalize recreational marijuana sales, and Congress isn't letting it happen. So it seems like enforcement is just lax.
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Step 1.) Add ATM in lobby. Step 2.) Tell customers they can't use cards because of laws. Step 3.) Customer uses debit card at ATM and then purchases weed with the cash they just used their debit card to get.
Fuck it. Not hard at all.
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Yes, but the problem is that the volume of cash makes retailers a massive target. People have been killed over this, and will continue to be put in danger until customers have access to the same payment resources that all other retail businesses take for granted. This is not a trivial issue at all. There are serious real world consequences to these decisions that paint the industry in a bad light when they are a DIRECT consequence of the inaction of the federal government. We are never going back to prohibition. There is simply too much tax revenue generated, and too much public sentiment on the side of both legalization as well as ending the failed drug war policies.
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Not just a massive target to criminals either. Cops are willing to pull over armored cars and take the cash when it gets transported. That money then goes through the civil asset forfeiture process, getting handed to the feds who then give some of it back to the local department through their "equitable sharing" program. Legalized theft.
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I've been to dispensaries with armed security. They're just as friendly inside as other dispensaries, but wow is that intimidating.
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Cash is way more dangerous to hold, these stores get robbed all the time. Just let them process cards
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Buy/build your shop like one of those "Check Cashing" places with the impossibly thick glass windows. Keep the cash behind said window.
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This is discriminatory and it shouldn't even need to exist, I mean, heck, you can literally buy legal weed over the internet now and get it delivered to your door, you can purchase seeds too because in 2018 selling hemp was decriminalized federally
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So real talk, VISA isn't much better - if you have a business selling tobacco, cannabis, or firearm related products you have a really hard time taking payments online. Most big vendors (like Paypal, Square, etc) won't work with you once you hit $5k to $10k a year in sales (for small businesses starting out you'll slip by for a few months until you grow big enough to get manually audited).
Then you need to find special card processing banks who are approved by VISA to work with tobacco/firearm companies and go through all sorts of review before your store will be approved for processing payments.
And that's just selling hardware like pipes and accessories. I'm not even talking about the raw material itself.
This sucks, but it won't stop anyone, they'll simply switch to another service. I bet VISA's stock will pop tomorrow because of this news if it hasn't already haha
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This really isn't that big of a deal anyways. Just deploy an ATM inside the shop as a courtesy. Bonus points if it's a nice machine that can give customers amounts in increments as little as $5.
Since your business has cash as it's main method of payment; it should be fairly simple to keep said ATM stocked up.
This at least would be the cheeky way to get around restrictions.
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What about for delivery?
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The way the dispensaries around me handle it is that they just do a cash withdrawal at the register as if I was using an ATM, so I pay the store in cash and the bank just sees it as getting cash back.
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Lol I'm not talking about dispensary businesses. I'm talking about online shops selling hardware like glass pipes and stuff. It's dumb, but it affects many small businesses in the USA.
Sadly there is no simple way to install a virtual ATM for payments on an online store
The messed up part is that while you can't do tobacco product sales using Paypal in the USA, if you're outside the USA paypal will totally take your business. As I've been told directly from Paypal's representatives - they want our business, but it's VISA putting down the rules about what merchant services can work with tobacco/firearm/cannabis sales - and there aren't many in the country (Paypal, Square, etc are not on that list).
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Can you buy medicine from the pharmacy with online payment? Could not these products all process under that payment system?
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Not surprising. Well, cash still exists, right? Or Monero..
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I've paid cash for weed for years. Still not legal here but that hasn't stopped me.
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I used to pay cash for weed. I still do, but I used to, too.
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Except Mastercard is lying, FinCEN has specifically issued guidance for national finance institutions (banks, credit cards, etc.) to be able to accept cannabis transactions in states that have legalized. Most of these finance institutions are just unwilling to accept the additional cost of complying with the regulations. There’s a reason why Valley National Bank is so popular with cannabis companies - it’s a national bank that follows FinCEN guidelines. It comes at a higher cost, but a lot of companies feel it’s worth it.
And this FinCEN guidance wasn’t just issued - it was issued in 2014. The only reason the cannabis industry doesn’t have widespread access to traditional finance, and why banks keep lobbying for the SAFE Banking Act, is because the banks don’t want to have to do the extra work to comply with the FinCEN guidance.
Note - I agree it’s stupid that cannabis is federally illegal and think it should be legalized (or at the very least deschedule it and let states decide if they’ll allow it). But Mastercard could choose to follow FinCEN guidance if they wanted to.
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If you think about it, do you really want a history of federal crimes recorded on your bank account...?
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What if dozens/hundreds of individuals were prosecuted for possession of a controlled substance because the DEA a) subpoenas the suppliers to get a list of transactions and B) subpoenas the credit card processors to get info on customers?
Because that's the fear
This is extremely unlikely under the current admin, but we may very well have a far more hostile admin in just under 18 months
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I don't live in the US... but if at a certain time the federal government decides to go backwards and wants to charge cannabis purchasers with federal crimes then you're ready to be served up on a platter by your bank.
The context here is payment method, not your willingness to support legal cannabis dispensers.
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No dispensary here accepts anything but cash because of the legalities anyway
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Not just in Canada, I know that exists in the USA as well
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ITT: Plenty of people who don’t understand how federal vs state laws work in regards to federally regulated businesses
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ITT: plenty of people who don't remember 2007 or 2020. Financial forms obey the rules that they want to when they want to. The federal government works for them, not the other way around.
This has nothing to do with the law this is MasterCard deciding to not go after that market.
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fuck debit itself no more losing money
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most (all?) shops in CA run debit transactions as ATM withdraws anyway
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Which is why in a lot of dispos across the country youll get change back after using your card.
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Not just Canada, I know that also happens in the USA at some shops
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It's not MasterCard's fault, it's the federal regulations against marijuana that make it illegal for MasterCard to process these payments. Blame the federal government, specifically the DEA who've become their own legislators and enforcers (they've usurped the original checks and balances of the Controlled Substances Act, it's pretty fucked up actually).
Bottom line: War on drugs has been a catastrophic failure of epic proportions and yet we haven't gutted and dismantled the sole agency that's gotten fat off of it and operates with barely any oversight.
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Can't cut up my FSA card.
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Lol. Cash is a thing you fucking idiots
99 comments
Kinda an incendiary headline when it’s just Mastercard complying with the law. From the article: "The federal government considers cannabis sales illegal, so these purchases are not allowed on our systems," Really the issue is that Marijuana should be legal at the federal level.
Yet it stays illegal because of conservative boomers and their fucking grand kids.
When polled, majorities are in support of legalization. If people would show up to vote more than once every 4 years we could make some actual progress on this issue. But since at least half of registered voters sit out every race, well here we are.
Worth noting that even some conservatives support legalization!
And yet I bet I can buy mortgaged backed securities with a MasterCard
AND shares in pot companies. How fucking illegal. Maybe the federal government can stop these pot companies from being traded openly considering how illegal it is.
Then why isn't Mastercard calling for that to happen?
I would personally love if ALL businesses stayed the fuck out of politics. Thank you.
Because they, as a corporate entity, don’t want to mess around with the law over something that won’t personally affect their bottom line in a massively positive manner.