Cannabis Banking: Using Data and Legal Expertise to Manage Risk and Identify Opportunity

/ Webinars / By Cogent Law

Thursday, December 10, 2026

12:00 – 1:00 PM ET

Virtual Event – Free to Attend

Cannabis banking is a compliance program and a credit decision at the same time, and both depend on information that goes stale quickly. Licenses change hands, ownership structures grow more layered, and market pressure reshapes the financial health of customers a bank has already onboarded. A KYC or KYB file captures one moment, and compliance review alone does not show how a customer, or an entire portfolio, is actually performing. Institutions that pair outside data with specialized counsel see those changes earlier and can document a defensible response.

Join Chris Van Dyck of Cogent Law, along with Ed Keating and John Stanfill of Emerald Intel, for a practical panel discussion on using external data and legal expertise to manage cannabis banking risk. The discussion moves deliberately: from knowing the people and businesses behind each customer, to placing that customer in market context, to assessing credit and portfolio-level risk, and finally to seeing how data and counsel work together to keep your framework defensible.

BRIEFING AGENDA

What You Will Learn

How external data can supplement traditional KYC and KYB processes with visibility into ownership, affiliated businesses, key individuals, and licensing history.
Why ongoing monitoring of a cannabis customer needs to reach beyond the account file to licensing and regulatory activity.
What licensing, regulatory, and market data reveal about how a cannabis business compares with its peers and its operating environment.
Why market structure, competition, and ownership concentration shape credit risk as much as compliance risk does.
What regulatory change and industry dynamics mean for the financial health of individual customers and the broader cannabis portfolio.
How analytics and specialized cannabis banking counsel work together to flag anomalies for review and keep a risk-management framework defensible.

AUDIENCE

Who Should Attend

Chief Risk Officers at U.S. banks and credit unions
Chief Compliance Officers and BSA/AML Officers
Chief Credit Officers and Chief Lending Officers
Chief Operating Officers overseeing deposit and account operations
Cannabis banking program managers and portfolio managers
Customer due diligence, KYC/KYB, and ongoing monitoring leads

MEET THE SPEAKERS

Chris Van Dyck

Partner, Cogent Law

Chris Van Dyck has spent more than 10 years in cannabis and hemp banking, starting as a financial regulatory attorney and later serving as general counsel, chief risk officer, and BSA officer at a financial institution. At that institution, he built its cannabis and hemp banking program into a significant source of revenue. Today, he advises financial institutions nationwide and brings the view from both sides of the table to this discussion.

Ed Keating

Co-Founder, Cannabiz Media (now Emerald Intel)

Ed Keating co-founded Cannabiz Media, now part of Emerald Intel, in 2015 and has spent more than a decade building and interpreting one of the most comprehensive regulatory datasets in the cannabis industry. That dataset spans licenses, ownership structures, violations, recalls, and M&A activity. On this panel, he shows how that information strengthens due diligence and ongoing monitoring.

John Stanfill

Co-Founder and CEO, Emerald Intel

John Stanfill is co-founder and CEO of Emerald Intel and has more than 30 years of experience building and scaling subscription-based data and information businesses. He previously served as CEO of RainKing, which was acquired by DiscoverOrg (now ZoomInfo) in 2017, and spent 19 years at CoStar Group, including as an executive officer. On this panel, he brings the market data and analytics perspective to cannabis banking risk.

EVENT DETAILS

Date: Thursday, December 10, 2026

Time: 12:00 – 1:00 PM ET

Format: Virtual Event (Free to Attend)

This webinar is for general informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal advice, and attending or asking questions does not create an attorney-client relationship with Cogent Law or its attorneys.

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