Hemp, opioid guidance issued

Two recently issued guidance documents, one from FINCEN the other from NCUA, are intended to provide assistance  to credit unions and other financial institutions in ensuring  that their BSA programs appropriately address the impact of these drugs on banking services. I’ll leave it up to you to decide for yourselves how helpful you actually find them.

First, there is the interim guidance issued by the NCUA providing an update and overview of the legality of providing hemp-related banking services. The guidance was issued as NCUA and other banking regulators face increasing pressure from Members of Congress who continue to hear complaints from home state hemp farmers in states like Kentucky that banking services are still difficult to secure.

The confusion on the part of the famers stems from the fact that late last year Congress included removing hemp from the Schedule I list of controlled substances in the 2018 Farm Bill. However, even though hemp is no longer on the list, the Department of Agriculture is responsible for promulgating regulations outlining the responsibility of states and Indian tribes that wish to make hemp production legal.

 

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