While the legalization of cannabis in Canada brought promising opportunities for the cannabis industry, new businesses faced significant banking challenges. The barriers for cannabis businesses to open accounts with traditional banks were (and still are) high, with costs reaching up to $7,500 for retailers to open a simple checking account. The industry faces outright refusals to open accounts for fully-legal businesses and where banks will open accounts they are faced with overpriced application costs and high banking fees. This made the cost of banking unaffordable for many retailers, making it near impossible for them to pursue their livelihood. This isn’t only about the cannabis industry, it’s about an issue all credit unions care about - the right of people to have access to fair and affordable banking services. Community Savings saw this as a problem which only credit unions will have the courage to solve. In one way or another all of our credit unions were built to solve similar issues of discrimination in our communities or areas where the banks just didn’t want to do the hard work.