An Inside-Look at Regent Bank’s Successful Cannabis Banking Program

Interview with Ben Shreffler, VP and Director of Cannabis-Related Business

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It’s been several years since Regent Bank launched its cannabis banking program. How has the program evolved since those early days, and where does it stand today?

Our Cannabis Related Business “CRB” program has evolved throughout the years to better serve our clients. Our program began when Oklahoma and Missouri passed their state questions approving their medicinal cannabis programs. We started banking CRBs in just those two states, but as our client base grew, our clients’ needs evolved as well. Since then, we have expanded to bank CRBs nationwide to better meet those needs.  

Wherever there is a legal cannabis program, including tribal programs, we can provide tailored banking solutions for cannabis businesses, their clients, and employees. In turn, we continue to invest more resources into our team to facilitate the rigorous compliance requirements required for financial institutions. Our success is owed in part to the successful relationship we have built with Green Check. Their cannabis compliance platform helps us perform and automate various tasks throughout our account onboarding and monitoring processes. This partnership allows us to remain compliant while being able to interact more with our clients and continue to foster those trusted relationships.

If you had to describe the Green Check partnership, what would you say?
Green Check has helped us successfully grow our CRB program while maintaining industry compliance standards. They provide an overall solution that can easily facilitate an FI with their CRB program with client onboarding and continuous account monitoring capabilities. Their entire team is so easy to work with, and we would recommend their services to any other FI entering the cannabis marketplace. They truly value a customer-focused platform, and their industry knowledge is unmatched.

What types of cannabis businesses does Regent Bank work with, and are there any license types, business sizes, or segments you’re particularly well-positioned to serve?

As our program continues to grow, Regent Bank is well-positioned to serve cannabis clients at any stage of their business. We are proud to offer accounts for businesses that are working to become fully licensed and operational without incurring any monthly CRB fees. These accounts are crucial in assisting a client paying licensing fees, establishing payroll procedures, applying for financing, and beginning a structure of clean financial procedures to allow for their future success.

We also bank licensed cannabis businesses, ancillary businesses, and we provide accounts for CBD and hemp operators. We offer money market accounts that allow a client to earn interest on their excess deposits, accounts to facilitate tax payments, and services to better facilitate vendor payments and team payroll. Regent Bank is also proud to support tribal and sovereign cannabis entities nationwide as well. We can assist clients in any market, any stage of growth, and we are proud to have been doing this successfully and compliantly for over 7 years. There may be additional hurdles that we might need to overcome for each account type, but we have the best team in place to allow our clients to focus on their business.

Ultimately, we are here to advocate on behalf of the cannabis community and provide business owners access to tools that can help them make decisions that best support their business.

What core banking services does Regent offer cannabis-related businesses today, and are there any specialized products or capabilities that set your program apart from other financial institutions?

Our current program allows for a robust CRB depository solution for our clients. We can assist our clients with an account structure that is the best fit for their business. Outside of CRB depository accounts, we do offer accounts for pre-licensed businesses, money market accounts to earn interest on excess deposits, and a dedicated CRB team that is providing concierge-style banking services that separate us from our competitors. Regent Bank is a full-service bank that also offers insurance products for our operators, personal accounts, and accounts for employees of CRBs. We have also assisted with escrow-style accounts that have been utilized during capital raises for current or future CRBs.

For our clients that are located outside of our physical footprint, we have wonderful partnerships to ensure that they are receiving access to merchant services and cash-in-transit providers that again help facilitate day-to-day operational solutions for their business. We can provide full provisional credits for cash that has been picked up, counted, and verified within 1-2 business days. Our clients can also utilize smart safes that help them get those full provisional credits on a more consistent basis.

What advice would you give to cannabis-related businesses seeking a reliable banking partner? What should they look for and what pitfalls should they avoid?

The thing I always emphasize for cannabis-related businesses would be the importance of consistency. I believe there is a direct correlation between consistency in POS systems, state tracking systems, internal financial reporting, and a client’s eventual success. The thing that can help a client to establish these consistent business practices is a banking partner that can provide them with safe, compliant solutions.

I always recommend business owners meet with many potential banking partners to interview them before opening any account. Potential clients have more banking options today than in the past few years. It’s important that your banker be able to answer any questions and provide you with guidance throughout the entire process before they send onboarding steps. Not all banking programs are created equally, and great banking partners can tailor solutions to fit your business, and exceptional ones, like Regent Bank will have open, honest conversations at each step. I do not expect each of our clients to know every regulatory feature of our CRB program, so it’s imperative that an FI’s CRB team should be able to speak intelligently about their program while building a trusted relationship with a potential client. 

I think the biggest pitfall an applicant can make is just looking for the cheapest or quickest banking option. We understand pricing should be a critical component of any decision, but I think it’s helpful to understand how those fees are being assessed, and how that money goes to the overall compliance of any FI’s CRB program. Owners should also see if they can have access to services, in which other businesses are afforded, i.e. in-person cash deposits, robust online banking platform, assistance with payments/wires/merchant services, and a dedicated CRB team to assist them with any questions. I think it’s also vital to choose a partner that will be fierce advocates for change and the ability to adapt to your business’ needs. Banking is not a one-size fits all approach, and it’s important to question an FI’s policies and procedures. Whether you bank with us or not, I will afford you the same opportunity and provide guidance to see if we would be a good fit for each other. The strongest cannabis banking relationships are built more like long-term partnerships than transactional vendor relationships.

What does the onboarding experience look like for a new cannabis business coming to Regent Bank? What should they expect from the moment they apply to when they’re fully banking with you?

Regent Bank has established rigorous Cannabis Related Business “CRB” onboarding and monitoring programs for our clients that are licensed cannabis businesses. We are required to perform enhanced due diligence checks into the business, the cannabis business license, the owners, and any authorized account signers. For onboarding, we require legal corporate documents, like we would for any standard business account. In addition to those requirements, we need to verify an active business license (for our direct accounts), specialized application depending on business type, merchant service agreements, and other business documents as needed. With a dedicated CRB team, we can typically open an account within two weeks, if not sooner, after a completed application being submitted. Our onboarding process for licensed cannabis business is completed through specialized templates through the Green Check platform.

Our team regularly reviews key business details after client onboarding to ensure that our clients are operating in a compliant manner. One of the biggest things we focus on is ensuring that a client’s sales are being reconciled against their deposits. Green Check allows our clients to integrate most POS systems for many of our retail clients. They have also provided steps to integrate invoicing information via appropriate account systems for our wholesale clients. This can give us some quick insights into the nature of each relationship.

Monitoring this amount of activity could be very tedious, however we could not bank our cannabis program without our trusted relationship we have built with Green Check Verified. Their cannabis compliance platform helps us perform and automate various tasks throughout the account monitoring process. For example, each of our clients’ transactions are run through Green Check’s rules engine. This allows Regent Bank to ensure that each sale from all our clients is subjugated to each state’s cannabis laws. In addition, we aggregate our client’s information to compare their data to their peers within the industry during our reviews. These monitoring tools enable us to properly investigate variances and allow us to give a better summary during each review cycle.

These robust processes allow our program to run smoothly, and our goal after onboarding is to allow our clients to focus on their business while we do the heavy lifting on the backend. As our program has grown, the resources we invest into every aspect of our CRB relationships have helped us scale our program to ensure we are providing affordable banking solutions for each client relationship.

Regent started its cannabis banking program in Oklahoma and Missouri but has since expanded to serve several states. Can you share your current cannabis footprint and any plans to further expand your program in 2026 or beyond?

Regent started our program in Oklahoma and Missouri after each passed their state questions to establish a medicinal cannabis program. We have branches across both markets, so that was our initial strategy. As our client base grew, our clients’ needs grew and evolved as well. Through successful partnerships with cannabis vendors like Green Check, we were able to begin banking our program nationwide beginning in 2022. Our current footprint spans from coast to coast, and we are truly proud of our award-winning CRB banking program. Our team strives to stay abreast of any regulatory changes and are attending conferences and specialized training opportunities that allow us to consistently review our program and evaluate for changes to continuously improve our program.

How is Regent thinking about the broader regulatory landscape such as federal rescheduling, and how does that shape your strategy?

With cannabis rescheduling, there are many nuances that we are evaluating for the future success of our program. Our CRB program regulations were built around the Cole Memo and 2014 FinCEN guidance regarding Marijuana-related businesses. Even with medical cannabis products being moved to schedule III, pending successful DEA licensure, FIs are still required to provide consistent account monitoring, ongoing enhanced due diligence, and provide necessary reporting to regulatory agencies. Just like our clients, we are eagerly awaiting new guidance. However, until it is issued, we must continue to properly monitor and report on our cannabis program. I think there are some intriguing avenues to explore in the meantime. The success of our program will be contingent on us meeting our clients’ needs, growing our program, and being able to quickly adapt to changes within the industry.

Regent is a long-time partner of Green Check. How has the partnership with Green Check evolved over the years? Are there capabilities or features you rely on today that you weren’t using when you first got started?

When I began working for Regent Bank’s CRB program, I was an analyst on our Monitoring Team. I would primarily use the Green Check system to complete periodic reviews. As our program quickly grew, we had to make our processes more streamlined and automated. Our continued program success would not be possible without our collaborative partnership with Green Check. They help us maintain a compliant program by providing client POS integrations, periodic platform/system enhancements, stout onboarding and monitoring capabilities, and a team who can help us maintain our strict program standards while providing helpful tools along the way. The way we utilize the platform now vs 2020 is night and day. The information we can easily collect and summarize for our clients has helped us provide our auditors and examiners with the assurances they need to confirm we are running a compliant program. I think their Monitoring Review platform and the updates they make for it was the biggest game changer for our program.

Green Check’s educational series have also been a bright spot for our program and our CRB team. It’s imperative that any team stay abreast of market changes, and Green Check has a dedicated to team to ensure that current trends and hot topics are being covered. This allows us and our clients to continue to focus on our programs while maintaining professional compliance, acknowledging industry changes, and helping promote future growth.

For a cannabis business that’s interested in banking with Regent, what’s the best way to get started? Who should they contact, and what’s the first step?

Our CRB Team would be more than happy to work with any client in the cannabis industry. We truly appreciate any opportunity to speak directly to a client to learn more about their business and their banking needs. Our e-mail is CRB@regent.bank, and they can call at 918-488-8807 and ask to speak with a CRB team member. If they prefer to find us online, they can do so HERE.