Think Progress

RushCard Customers Can Finally Look Forward To Getting Paid For Being Locked Out Of Their Accounts

Ex-Goldman Banker Who Helped Bail Out Large Banks Now Says He Wants To Break Them Up

The man who helped the federal government bail out large banks during the 2008 financial crisis says he hopes to use his new position as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis to regulate them out of existence.

Bank Raises Its Minimum Wage To $15, Sees Immediate Benefits

In August, New York-based Amalgamated Bank announced it would immediately raise its minimum pay to at least $15 an hour.

At the time, the bank noted that it was the first to make such an announcement. But it’s also committed to making sure more follow its lead.

Big Banks Balk, So Colorado Has Created A Credit Union For The Marijuana Industry

Nearly a year after Colorado’s first legal marijuana shops opened, the thriving industry’s biggest problem is deciding what to do with all of its cash. Now, the state banking commission believes it has found a way to free pot entrepreneurs from the regulatory haze between federal banking laws, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) policy, and the state’s right to experiment with legalization.

The nation’s first bank for marijuana pushers, growers, and investors will open in January after Colorado’s banking regulators approved a charter for The Fourth Corner Credit Union.

The first-of-its-kind bank will allow state business owners to move away from relying on cash for every transaction. Business has been very good for marijuana sellers since the state’s carefully designed legalization regime came online in early 2014, but traditional banks have refused to do business with the industry for fear of inviting punishment from regulators that are required to enforce the federal prohibition on the drug. That inability to access banking services has pushed the businesses into the arms of companies like Blue Line Protection Group, a security firm that specializes in moving and safeguarding huge piles of cash for the marijuana industry.

As the cash stacked up and security concerns mounted, Colorado’s banking regulators came to view that problem as justification for approving a pot bank. Their rationale hinges on a detail from the Department of Justice’s 2013 announcement that prosecutors should scale back prosecutions of marijuana offenses and stop pursuing cases against pot businesses that operate in compliance with their state’s drug laws. The memo announcing those changes described eight factors that prosecutors should continue to pursue aggressively, including “preventing revenue from the sale of marijuana from going to criminal enterprises, gangs, and cartels.”

Keeping Colorado’s marijuana revenue out of the hands of criminal enterprises will be much easier if the industry doesn’t have to rely on cash. “If you can’t get your cash into the Federal Reserve system, you end up stockpiling it in your home, in caves, in your business. At some point, the risk becomes worth it for organized crime,” state financial services commissioner Chris Myklebust told USA Today. “I’ve never even held a joint but I really want to see them banked.”