On behalf of the United Cannabis Business Association, we want to thank you for expressing your concerns on AB 1525. Your involvement helped to protect cannabis operators.
We want to congratulate Assembly Member Jones-Sawyer as AB 1525 was signed by Governor Newsom. We also want to thank Governor Newsom for hearing our concerns and directing state agencies to develop regulations to limit the data that can be disclosed and to protect confidentiality and proprietary information.
Facilitating banking to the cannabis industry is very important while also protecting cannabis operators’ data.
One of our initial concerns with AB 1525’s original language was that the legislation required a waiver of confidentiality on “Application, licensee, and other regulatory and financial information” including track and trace data. After expressing our opposition, AB 1525 was amended on August 21, 2020 to state that “A person who provides a waiver may withdraw that waiver at any time. Upon receipt of the withdrawal, the state or local licensing authority, state or local agency, or joint powers authority shall cease to share application, licensee, or other regulatory or financial information with the financial institution.”
One other concern is that AB 1525 can be interpreted to require a cannabis business’ proprietary data to be released which is important information that provides a map on ways that cannabis operators run their operations.
We thank Governor Newsom for understanding our concerns. We look forward to working with state agencies to protect cannabis operators’ data while trying to increase the provision of financial services.