Mastercard to Ban Electronic Payments for Recreational Cannabis Purchases

Starting this week, Mastercard will prohibit electronic payment services for the purchase of recreational cannabis products. According to company representatives, this move is intended to protect customers’ financial information from potential exploitation by unreliable organizations. Due to the illegal status of cannabis in most countries, any legal cannabis business dealing with THC-containing plants and extracts is considered high-risk by Mastercard.

This decision removes the world’s second-largest electronic payment card service from the cannabis market. Experts predict this will soon impact the industry in the United States, Canada, and other regions where cannabis has been legalized.

“Officially, we do not work with legal cannabis dealers,” a Mastercard spokesperson stated. “When we learned that local banks were using our cards to process payments in this market, we took action. We urged banks to stop this practice to protect our clients’ deposits and to safeguard the company’s reputation and integrity.”

This announcement has already caused chaos in regional markets. Both individual customers and businesses serving the cannabis industry may now find themselves without a key payment tool.

“Since the end of last week, when the company first announced its plans to stop servicing the cannabis industry, we’ve been flooded with angry calls,” said Peter Su, payment systems manager at Hanover Bank. “Many of our clients in the cannabis sector want to know how they can make both retail and business transactions without using cash. Last year, for similar reasons, the market lost access to cashless ATM payments. Now, the market has also lost PIN debit cards. As a result, clients are left with only two options: use cash or the old ACH (Automated Clearing House) system, which is less convenient and secure, since it actually leaves card details with ‘unreliable’ cannabis shops.”

This development has reignited discussions around the SAFE Banking Act, which aims to legalize cooperation between the cannabis market and financial institutions. “Once again, the flaws in the current legalization system are obvious to everyone,” said Matt Darin, CEO of Curaleaf. “If we don’t create a formal regulatory system for legal cannabis markets, the entire industry will remain at the mercy of banks and politicians, who could ultimately restrict us to using only cash for business transactions.”

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