Webinars

5 High Risk Areas of Banking Cannabis

5 High Risk Areas of Banking Cannabis

by | May 23, 2020 |

This is a previously recorded webinar, which is available on demand.

In today’s evolving regulatory landscape, the rules on providing financial services to commercial cannabis businesses (CCB) are complex. The commercial cannabis industry is highly regulated and has complex risks to manage: anti money laundering, organized crime, compliance, supply chain, and operational risk areas. The financial institutions that services these customers must understand these 5 high-risk areas to manage their risk appetite.

The number of institutions banking marijuana-related businesses (MRBs) is in the hundreds—up from zero in 2014. Join this panel of professionals for practical guidance on preparing financial institutions for commercial cannabis banking and ongoing controls for one of compliance’s most complex and rapidly evolving customer types.

Hear from Phil Martin, a former Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division manager; Chris Gunias, the Chief Compliance Officer of HDCS; and Cathy Scharf, SVP of Compliance for a mid size bank who services ancillary cannabis businesses. Find out what opportunities banking commercial cannabis businesses provides a financial institution and key considerations to keep in mind if you enter this customer segment.

This webinar provides two hours of ACCCE continuing education credits, which other associations may also accept. We recommend documenting this training for your regulators as two hours of professional training on cannabis banking.

This is a previously recorded webinar, which is available on demand.

ACCCE Community Discussion – The Risk Assessment Process

ACCCE Community Discussion – The Risk Assessment Process

by | Feb 24, 2021 |

Improve your risk assessment by hearing from Angelo, a former regulator, with years of risk assessment experience. Ask Angelo your questions to validate your current practices against his knowledge of risk assessment best practices.

The Risk Assessment process will help you identify the highest residual risks that have a material impact on your business so you can allocate resources appropriately. The risk assessment is a foundational component of the risk program because it creates a strong defendable risk culture.

The risk assessment enables prioritization and tailoring of the risk-based control activities.

Join ACCCE for the next community discussion where guest speaker Angelo Coppola, Chief Anti-Money Laundering Officer of Globex 2000 and former regulator, will talk about the risk assessment process; specifically, how to measure the inherent risks a business is exposed to, how to evaluate the quality of controls implemented, and how to measure the risks that remain. Angelo will be happy to answer any risk assessment questions the audience may have.

For those studying for ACCCE certification, this is a great opportunity to reinforce concepts discussed in the Commercial cannabis Handbook.

Continuing Education: .5

Cannabis Banking Due Diligence – Deep Dive (US)

Cannabis Banking Due Diligence – Deep Dive (US)

by | Aug 12, 2020 |

In today’s evolving regulatory landscape, the requirements to offer banking services to commercial cannabis businesses (CCB) are complex at best. Whether internally managed or outsourced to a service provider, financial institutions are still ultimately responsible for the proper risk and Anti-Money Laundering management of these clients. Updating the financial institution’s due diligence requirements is one of the first areas that requires attention. Proper due diligence on a commercial cannabis business allows a financial institution to reasonably predict expected transactions, identify unusual activity, and understand the ownership and control of the commercial cannabis business.

This webinar will review risk-based considerations a financial institution should consider. Our expert panel includes North Bay Credit Union’s Chief Compliance Officer Carole McCormick, NatureTrak’s CEO Jontae James, and Clarion Compliance’s CEO Kirk Barry. Our panel will review the major documents, data, and red flag indicators in commercial cannabis business due diligence analysis. This webinar will focus on the unique risk issues associated with conducting due diligence on a commercial cannabis business.

Our panel will provide an in-depth analysis of documents, data, and red flags that are needed for due diligence. The panel will specifically review the certificate of analysis (COA), license reviews, and commercial cannabis entity types. They will also provide insight into the unique components of a commercial cannabis business site visit and track and trace data used for due diligence analysis of commercial cannabis businesses.

This is an ACCCE On Demand video, available immediately.

Continuing Education: 2 credits

Cannabis Banking in the Boardroom: Risk Management

Cannabis Banking in the Boardroom: Risk Management

by | Aug 7, 2020 |

This webinar provides financial institution directors, executives, and officers in-depth training to move forward with considering cannabis banking or expanding their cannabis banking program. We will cover key data to benchmark your cannabis banking program with best practices for cannabis banking board oversight. Walk away with handouts that provide practical guidance and resources to bring back to your own boardroom.

Our expert panel includes Joe Bonner, an experienced Community Bank CEO, Andy Montgomery an experienced Bank CEO, and Carole McCormick the Chief Compliance Officer at North Bay Credit Union. The panel will provide information about the fundamentals of effective communication to the financial institution’s board of directors on cannabis banking. We will introduce key regulatory expectations, identify questions that management should answer for the board of directors, and provide red flags where the board should consider further actions.

This is an ACCCE On Demand video available immediately.

Continuing Education: 2 hours

Compliance Management Best Practices: Putting the Risk Assessment to Work for You

Compliance Management Best Practices: Putting the Risk Assessment to Work for You

by | Nov 19, 2020 |

Cannabis Risk Officers, save time and money by utilizing your risk assessment to identify the most critical risks that need to be addressed.

Every commercial cannabis business is unique. The amount of resources applied to compliance management should vary based on your compliance risk. A compliance risk assessment will assist you in demonstrating to your stakeholders the appropriate compliance resourcing by showing your business’s understanding of the most critical regulatory risks. Understanding the likely impacts, frequency of occurrence, and current quality of controls provides a roadmap to best allocate resources to manage the highest residual risk issues first. This allows you to manage your compliance costs based on your business’s unique complexity and maturity. In this webinar, learn how to create a robust risk assessment based on the risk drivers of compliance to focus on higher-risk issues.

Maintaining compliance in the commercial cannabis industry can be daunting, considering how highly regulated the industry is and how quickly rules change. Having a formal methodology to identify high risk issues by compliance risk driver will help you quickly identify your compliance needs; however, identifying high-risk issues is not enough. You must correct compliance issues outside of your risk appetite. To demonstrate effective compliance management, learn how to communicate across the business with issue management and follow up on the implementation with appropriate assurance to determine if the new controls meet your cannabis risk management framework expectations. These actions create proof of proactive compliance, which is considered favorably by stakeholders even if noncompliance is found.

Continuing Education: 2 hours

De-Risking the Supply Chain

De-Risking the Supply Chain

by | Jun 18, 2021 |

Cannabis risk officers, save your business time and money by understanding the highest risk issues that the cannabis product supply chain exposes you to, and obtaining answers from our expert panelist Elise Serbaroli on how to manage those risks efficiently and effectively.

The licensed cannabis product supply chain is built to ensure handoff of the cannabis product through multiple license types before it is sold to the consumer to better manage risks to public health, public safety, and taxation. While this methodology has benefits, it also increases the complexity of managing your supply chain risks. Managing complex supply chains requires an understanding of the risks you are exposed to, identifying those risks in your supply chain, implementing controls to manage risks once identified, and being able to work with your supply chain to manage risk together.

Elise will discuss common high-risk issues, best practices in managing your risk, and how to explain these practices to vendors above and below you in the supply chain. She will link the challenges faced by the cannabis industry in managing supply chain risk, and how other highly regulated industries have solved for similar risks. Elise will also discuss how the right technology solution can help manage the high-risk issues identified in the cannabis product supply chain. Disruptions with single buyers or sellers, complex cross jurisdictional compliance requirements, and exposure to recalling cannabis product are just a few common high-risk issues that a cannabis risk officer must manage. Effective controls to manage your supply chain include, but are not limited to, analysis, forecasting, and oversight of resource planning, inventory tracking, testing, and contract management. Establishing your controls by identifying common high-risk issues will keep the overhead cost reasonable and reduce the impact and frequency of supply chain problems, but the most cost-effective way to manage supply chain risk is to work with your supply chain vendors both above and below you.

This is an ACCCE On Demand Webinar, available for immediate viewing.

Continuing Education: .5

Intro to Track and Trace

Intro to Track and Trace

by | Nov 10, 2020 |

Track and trace systems store vast amounts of data about the cannabis product from seed to sale. This is a foundational element in creating transparency when managing cannabis products through the licensed commercial cannabis industry and one of the best sources of data available. Any entity dealing with commercial cannabis needs to understand what the track and trace regulations and the track and trace systems are meant to do, the data collected, and how it transitions across the supply chain to create transparency for the cannabis product from seed to sale. As one of the richest data sources available, understanding the track and trace system will help you implement due diligence on your cannabis product supply chain and monitor the cannabis product under the commercial cannabis business’s control.

We interview former cannabis examiner Phil Martin, CEO of Copacetic Strategies. This video will provide insight on the fundamentals of track and trace regulations, how non regulators can use the data to identify the risk profile of the cannabis product they work with, and what data to focus on.

This ACCCE On Demand video will review the data commercial cannabis businesses or ancillary commercial cannabis businesses should consider for ongoing monitoring.

This is an ACCCE On Demand video. This video is one hour in length.

Continuing Education: 1 hour

Introduction to Compliance Management – Establishing the Culture of Compliance

Introduction to Compliance Management – Establishing the Culture of Compliance

by | Nov 18, 2020 |

In 2019 across North America, compliance violations were assessed for millions of dollars, with multiple individual fines exceeding $100,000, and hundreds of licenses were revoked. Noncompliance with laws and regulations can expose your commercial cannabis business to litigation, monetary penalties, and other formal enforcement actions including license revocation. Compliance in the commercial cannabis industry is highly regulated and complex due to the multi jurisdiction requirements, quick changes to rule making and regulation, and growth of the industry. Establishing a culture of compliance early reduces the likelihood that your business is damaged by noncompliance and creates an effective defense to reduce the impact of noncompliance should it happen in the future.

Effective compliance management enhances your business’s ability to manage compliance responsibilities, ensures employees understand these responsibilities, establishes self-reviews and audits to ensure responsibilities are carried out, and creates an issue management process to manage corrective actions when noncompliance is identified. Learn how to integrate board and management oversight, formalize compliance policies and procedures, and establish compliance audit standards into your risk program to start this process. These elements allow you to focus your resources on the highest risk problems while you mature compliance management over time.

This is an ACCCE Webinar; the live Q&A will be January 21, 2021 from noon to 2:00 MST.

Continuing Education: 2 hours

Using Track and Trace Data to Identify Unusual Activity

Using Track and Trace Data to Identify Unusual Activity

by | Nov 18, 2020 |

Data from the track and trace system provides a key data set to identify unusual activity early in the event horizon. This allows commercial cannabis businesses and ancillary cannabis businesses to manage issues before they become fines, penalties, or other negative risk outcomes. These rich data systems follow the cannabis product from seed to sale making it an important data set for any entity dealing with commercial cannabis to understand. Using data from track and trace systems allows your business to implement a robust set of risk-based controls for your individual cannabis products, cannabis product portfolio, and licensed businesses in your supply chain rather than a one size fits all approach.

This expert panel will discuss how to use track and trace data to implement a risk-based control environment that commercial cannabis businesses or ancillary commercial cannabis businesses should consider. Our expert panel will specifically cover how to use the data to enhance self-reviews, unusual activity analysis, and red flag monitoring.

This is an ACCCE On Demand video, accessible immediately after purchase. The video is one hour in length.

Continuing Education: 1 hour

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