The Institutionalization of Cannabis Lending: Credit Risk, Regulators, and the Opportunity

Cannabis lending is moving from the margins toward the mainstream. As state-legal operators mature and look for capital to scale, financial institutions are under growing pressure to participate in a market that no longer fits the experimental category.

What is shifting now is that credit risk frameworks are starting to standardize, regulators are setting clearer expectations, and the institutions willing to step in early are positioning themselves to capture meaningful margin.

Join Ted Robinson of CTrust and Chris Van Dyck of Cogent Law for a practical conversation on what the institutionalization of cannabis lending looks like in practice, how to evaluate the opportunity, how to standardize credit risk in a non-traditional industry, and what regulators expect when financial institutions enter or expand into cannabis lending.

What You Will Learn

• How cannabis lending is shifting from a niche concern to an institutional opportunity, and where the most defensible margin lies today.
• What a standardized credit risk framework for cannabis borrowers actually looks like, and how it differs from traditional commercial lending.
• How to evaluate cannabis collateral and structure loan terms that protect the financial institution.
• The specific regulatory expectations examiners apply to cannabis lending programs, including alignment with the 2014 FinCEN guidance.
• How to build internal policies, procedures, and lending covenants that satisfy both safety-and-soundness and BSA requirements.
• Practical steps for entering or expanding a cannabis lending program without overextending risk or compliance resources.

Who Should Attend

• Senior executives at community banks and credit unions evaluating entry into cannabis lending.
• Chief Risk Officers, Chief Credit Officers, and Chief Compliance Officers responsible for program oversight.
• BSA Officers and AML compliance leaders managing cannabis-related accounts.
• Commercial lending and credit teams underwriting cannabis-related businesses.
• General Counsel and in-house regulatory attorneys at financial institutions.
• Cannabis operators seeking to better understand how lenders evaluate and structure deals.

Meet the Speakers

Ted Robinson

Chief Strategy Officer, CTrust

Ted Robinson is the Chief Strategy Officer at CTrust, where he leads business development and financial institution engagement. He brings extensive experience in bank financing and debt collateralization, and previously served as COO of Cinder Cannabis, a vertically integrated multi-state operator with operations in Washington and New Mexico.

Before entering the cannabis industry, Ted founded and led SWBC Lending Solutions, a fintech platform that supported more than 300 community banks and credit unions and originated $2 billion in home equity loans annually. He holds a BS in Business Administration from Montana State University.

Chris Van Dyck

Partner, Cogent Law

Chris Van Dyck is a Partner at Cogent Law and has been involved in cannabis banking for more than a decade. He began his career as a financial regulatory attorney during the rollout of the 2014 FinCEN guidance and later served as General Counsel, Chief Risk Officer, and BSA Officer at a financial institution.

During that tenure, he built and scaled the institution’s cannabis banking program into a significant revenue source. Today, he advises financial institutions across the country on launching and expanding compliant programs, including risk management, policy design, lending covenants, and regulatory readiness.