I have been doing some research on the cannabis industry over the past couple of months, and from what I have been reading it is a consistently growing market, and the barriers to entry are now becoming lower, thanks to various U.S. states making the substance legal, as well as the decriminalization of cannabis.
One pain point that I have seen come up often is that there isn't a reliable payment processor for the sale of cannabis and cannabis derivatives. Large banks usually decline transactions for cannabis payments, and there are many hoops to jump through. This sounds like a a huge opportunity if a solution can be found, but as I was reading more on the legalities of cannabis payment processors, it gave me pause. While multiple cannabis payment processors do exist, there are some very gray areas with how these processors are able to process payments, some bordering on illegal.
It would be great if it can be explained whether creating a cannabis payment processor can be legally done in the United States. Currently, large companies that deal with financial transactions (Stripe, Master Card, Visa, the big banks) reject or prohibit cannabis transactions.