AFC in Practice: Safely Onboarding Marijuana-Related Businesses

Mr. Kemmerling is the CEO and Founder of CRB Monitor, which empowers financial institutions to manage risk and monetize opportunity in emerging, high-risk industries including Cannabis and Crypto.  Our best-in-class cannabis corporate intelligence platform identifies, categorizes and monitors 95,000+ Businesses, 250,000+ cannabis licenses, 146,000+ Owners, and 1,400+ Securities directly related to the industry.  Clients utilize our data for screening, EDD/KYC, initial on-boarding, on-going monitoring, deal-originations and market/risk analysis.  Our database(s) can be accessed via our on-line UI, API integrations and bulk datafeeds, including integrations with multiple KYC software and data partners.  Clients include commercial banks with over $5.5 trillion in assets.

The Honorable Rodney E. Hood is widely respected as one of America’s most pragmatic financial regulators — a leader known less for partisanship and more for building solutions that expand access while protecting safety and soundness.

He is the only person ever to lead both federal agencies overseeing insured financial institutions — serving as Acting Comptroller of the Currency and Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration. In those roles, he also served on the FDIC Board, the Financial Stability Oversight Council, and chaired the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council.

Today, he continues his work as a bridge-builder between industry, regulators, and innovators — serving on the boards of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta and Zest AI, and advising multiple fintech and financial inclusion initiatives.

Whether writing in The Wall Street Journal or speaking to global regulators, Mr. Hood is consistent in his message: regulation should be effective but never excessive — and access to financial services should be a right, not a privilege.

20 years of banking experience across branch operations, fraud, compliance, and training, she brings a wealth of expertise to the industry. Since launching Farmers’ cannabis banking program in 2022, Beth has successfully grown it to more than 100 Tier 1 deposit accounts and loans while maintaining strong federal and state exam results. She is an ICBA-certified BSA/AML Professional and holds multiple specialized cannabis banking certifications. Beth has spoken as a panelist at the Payments, Banking & Compliance Conference in Washington, D.C., presenting on topics including CRB due diligence and interagency third-party risk guidance. She is passionate about advancing compliance standards and supporting community banks in navigating evolving regulatory landscapes.

Michael Moran is currently the Special Investigations Manager at Valley Bank, overseeing a team of senior AML investigators concentrating on new and emerging issues in AML, including cannabis banking. Michael is a subject matter expert in both AML and cannabis compliance, with over eighteen years of banking experience. He was part of the team that helped launch the cannabis banking program in 2020, helping the bank expand its footprint into over thirty states. During his years in the cannabis banking space, Michael has worked with cannabis regulators to enhance the regulatory environment in those states, assisted other financial institutions in implementing cannabis banking programs, and has provided training to retail and lending teams around Valley. In addition to cannabis compliance, Michael is responsible for the monitoring emerging threats via the use Peer-to-Peer transfer applications and works closely with Valley’s fraud team to identify areas the teams can work together to combat fraud and money laundering. Outside of work, Michael volunteers his time to train and mentor young athletes though the NHL’s Hockey is for Everyone initiative during the winter months and coaches the sport of Gaelic Football during the spring and fall.

Gillian Schauer, PhD, MPH is the Executive Director of the Cannabis Regulators Association - a nonpartisan, nonprofit association that convenes, educates, and supports government agencies regulating cannabis, cannabinoids, and hemp across more than 45 states and U.S. territories, Canada, and the Netherlands. Dr. Schauer was elected CANNRA’s first Executive Director in 2021, and served as a Senior Advisor to CANNRA before the association’s founding. She has spoken internationally on the regulatory landscape and regulatory needs related to hemp-derived cannabinoids, including testifying on the issue before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountablity's Health Care and Financial Services Subcommittee.

Dr. Schauer has worked in public health and policy for two decades, and has more than a decade of experience working with federal and state agencies on cannabis policy, data monitoring, and research translation. Prior to working on cannabis policy, Dr. Schauer worked on tobacco control policy. She was the Senior Editor on the 2020 Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking Cessation. Dr. Schauer is an affiliate researcher at the University of Washington and has more than 75 peer-reviewed research publications on cannabis and other substances. She has a PhD from Emory University, a Master of Public Health from University of Washington, and a Bachelors of Science from Northwestern University.