Cannabis Lending: Risks, Rewards and Solutions

Cannabis lending is becoming one of the most compelling growth opportunities for community banks, credit unions, specialty finance firms, and private lenders. Cannabis-related businesses remain underserved, demand for capital is strong, and yields can be attractive, but the risk is real.

Financial institutions lending to cannabis businesses must navigate BSA/AML obligations, FinCEN guidance, state-by-state rules, collateral challenges, SAR monitoring, and examiner expectations.

Join Adam Crabtree, Founder and CEO of NCS Analytics, and Chris Van Dyck, Partner at Cogent Law, for a practical discussion on how to underwrite, price, monitor, and manage cannabis lending portfolios in a compliant and defensible way.

What You Will Learn

• How to structure cannabis loans around FinCEN guidance, BSA/AML rules, and examiner expectations.
• How to evaluate credit risk in cash-intensive and federally restricted businesses.
• How to approach collateral, perfection, and workout challenges in cannabis lending.
• Where revenue opportunities exist and how to price for risk.
• How real-time data and behavioral analytics can reduce SAR fatigue and surface red flags earlier.
• What federal rescheduling, the SAFER Banking Act, and state-level changes may mean for your lending strategy.

Who Should Attend

• Chief Lending Officers, Commercial Lenders, and Credit Officers.
• BSA Officers, Compliance Officers, and Risk Managers.
• Bank and Credit Union Executives.
• In-house counsel and outside legal advisors.
• Specialty finance and private credit professionals.
• Board members and audit committee leaders evaluating MRB exposure.

Meet the Speakers

Adam Crabtree

Founder & CEO, NCS Analytics

Adam is the Founder and CEO of NCS Analytics, the market leader in high-risk data analytics for the cannabis industry. Based in Denver, NCS actively monitors more than 18,000 cannabis businesses across the United States on behalf of regulatory agencies and financial institutions. Adam built the company on the conviction that real-time data should drive real-time decisions, pairing one of the most extensive cannabis data sets in the industry with patent-pending predictive and behavioral analytics. He works directly with banks, credit unions, and regulators to deliver the insight needed to mitigate risk and run defensible MRB programs.

Chris Van Dyck

Partner, Cogent Law

Chris is a Partner at Cogent Law and one of the country's leading advisors to financial institutions serving the cannabis industry. With over ten years in cannabis banking, first as a financial regulatory attorney, then as general counsel, chief risk officer, and BSA officer at a financial institution, he brings rare, ground-level expertise to every engagement. Chris built and oversaw a cannabis banking program that grew into a significant revenue source while meeting full regulatory compliance. Today, he advises banks and credit unions nationwide on program structure, BSA/AML policy, FinCEN guidance, and sustainable MRB growth.