Michigan cannabis dispensaries, and customers have had a difficult time trying to use Visa and Mastercard to pay for transactions. Since cannabis remains a federal schedule 1 drug – along with cocaine and heroin – credit card companies and federally chartered banks have said no to cannabis.
New Line Processing, a New York-based company, has just come into Michigan to offer cannabis customers lines of credit of up to $800 that can are tied to digital wallets on smart phones and used to buy cannabis. Since a tribal bank is backing the financial instrument, it can not be cancelled like Mastercard and Visa that don’t allow cannabis transactions. It also is free for consumers to use, while the dispensary pays only 3 percent service fee. Studies show that allowing credit card purchases can increase sales by 25 percent or more, Dan Abadir, CEO of New Link Processing, said in the interview.
Abadir provides all the details in this video interview with Mike Brennan from Four20Post and Matt Roush, a former business writer who now works for Lawrence Technological University.
You also can check the company out at www.newline processing.com