FinCEN’s own data through 2025 suggested around 800 financial institutions reporting cannabis-related accounts — though many industry insiders believe the true number of institutions actively underwriting plant-touching operators is far smaller, perhaps closer to 100. The institutions that have built real cannabis banking programs have done so by constructing compliance architectures that are expensive to build and expensive to abandon. They are not likely to dismantle those programs because of ambiguity. But they are also unlikely to dramatically expand their cannabis portfolios until there is clarity on what the new framework actually requires.

Joseph Silvia, a former Federal Reserve lawyer who represents banks, fintechs, and other clients on M&A, payments, cannabis banking, and other regulatory matters at Duane Morris does not expect the rescheduling to move the needle in either direction. "Banks are in a potentially difficult place with the rescheduling, but what I expect is that most will continue running their cannabis banking programs as they have been." says Silvia via email. And on the question of new market entrants, "Banks will not be flooding the market to establish new cannabis banking programs simply because of rescheduling. It really hasn't moved the needle for banks."

This inertia has a certain logic. The fundamental legal risk that has kept major national banks out of cannabis — the absence of a statutory safe harbor protecting institutions from federal penalties for processing cannabis proceeds — has not changed with rescheduling. Cannabis remains federally illegal for adult-use purposes. And even for medical operators now under Schedule III, the mismatch between the state-licensed distribution model and the FDA pharmaceutical framework means that the "clean" compliance path does not yet exist.

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