Staff
The inaugural Frontier Finance Awards were named last week at the MJBiz conference in Las Vegas Nevada where Currency Research was broadcasting The Cash Show live from the event. Awarding the prizes to each bank was noted industry veteran Todd Kleperis who founded cannabis banking solution company Payzel after selling his armored car business in cannabis.
The Frontier Finance Award was given to Fresno First Bank for “Growth In Market” and First Federal Bank received the “Strongest Growth in Lending.” This is the first time banks have competed for the best bank in Cannabis. Banks have notoriously been remiss about their work in cannabis but the tide is changing and more banks are competing for the best financial performances they have done to gain industry acceptance.
Kleperis was best known previously as the founder of HARDCAR which moved the currency for the cannabis industry as well as moved the product for some of the best brands in cannabis. HARDCAR was the first company in the nation to both move the product and cash as a legal cannabis distribution company and armored car firm. Having moved billions of dollars and seeing where the industry was headed, Todd sold HARDCAR and pursued building a fintech firm.
Payzel was formed out of his work at Harvard University where he met his now co-founder, Lauren Cohen a noted expert on fintech. The two set out to change the face of banking high risk industries and have brought forward amazing banks that already are in the hardest frontier industry there is today. Payzel has received funding from The Holt Exchange, the largest fintech group in Canada. At the forefront of any industry, there are those that take the risks to make things happen. Payzel believes those frontier industries are the way of the future and deserve banking today.
