Hi all

We have a potential commercial customer who owns commercial property that houses retail tenants. One of those tenants is a pot dispensary. Would this place the commercial lessor (our potential customer) as a tier II or tier III MRB? It doesn't specifically market its retail space to just marijuana businesses, nor does it receive all of its income just from marijuana businesses. That leads me to think it would be a tier III MRB. Any thoughts are appreciated. Thank you!

The concept of Tiers of MRB-ness is a construct of a third party BSA/AML service provider/consultant, not found in any rule, regulation or guidance from FinCEN.

Agree with John. Because there are no regulations or guidance to lean on, you need to define MRBs in your cannabis banking or BSA/AML policy. The way we suggest is that plant touching businesses are defined as "direct MRBS" and then businesses who derive substantial income from MRBs, say 51% ore more, are defined as "indirect MRBs".

Defining the portion of this CRE customer's revenue which is obtained from MRB will help you define your risk, and subsequently what efforts you need to take under your cannabis banking or BSA/AML policy in terms of monitoring.

You do not need to file marijuana SARs on indirect businesses, but need to potentially file if there is anything suspicious occurring under standard FinCEN guidance.