A Democratic senator, key federal officials and consumer advocacy groups are raising concerns about a specific provision of a bipartisan marijuana banking bill that they say could inadvertently limit the ability of regulators to take action against people exploiting banking services.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) first flagged his issues with Section 10 of the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act during a Senate Banking Committee hearing focused on the legislation earlier this month.
The senator said that its language “would make it more difficult for federal regulators to raise the alarm about relationships with any customer that presents significant risks to the bank.”
“It’s not limited to the marijuana industry or the cannabis industry, so it could allow pyramid schemes or all sorts of other interesting activity to go on without an effective response by the regulator,” he said.
Watch Reed discuss his concerns about the banking bill section, around 1:24:20 into the video below:
Reed also argued that the section “will require a bank to provide a notice of customer when the federal government suspects they may be engaging in illegal activity,” which he equated to tipping off a criminal to “get out of town and take the
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