CEO Dustin Eide sat down with New Cannabis Ventures to discuss CanPay’s network, its market reach and a recent payments milestone.
When the Cole Memo and FinCEN guidance were released that same year, he saw the opportunity to start building the CanPay model.
Cassandra Ingram helps keep CanPay compliant with regulators and federal guidance, which is important for the company’s banking partners and merchants.
The app connects directly to consumers’ checking accounts and allows them to make purchases at the more than 800 retailers across 32 markets in the CanPay network.
CanPay works with retailers that already have established relationships with financial institutions that can join the company’s network.
In one bucket, there are services that attempt to work through traditional debit and credit systems, but Eide considers many of these services a creative workaround or even a direct violation of card rules relating to cannabis.
CanPay solves for payment challenges created by the current regulatory environment, but what happens when regulations evolve? Eide anticipates that there will still be significant due diligence requirements for financial institutions looking to provide payment services even with SAFE Banking.
CanPay recently hit a significant milestone: its network has exceeded $500 million in lifetime transactions.
Thus far, CanPay has been bootstrapped, which has allowed the company a great deal of flexibility, according to Eide.
It is also adding to its team to support its live chat function, which allows consumers to engage with the company in real time, and it is preparing for new developments around ecommerce and payments.