Mike Kennedy, Co-Founder & CSO of Green Check Verified – Interview Series

Despite seeming like oil and water due to various federal laws, the cannabis and banking industries do have some similarities. They’re both meticulously and strictly regulated due to the potential for criminality, technological and technical issues can run rampant, and marketing ROI’s can fluctuate wildly or be outright unsuccessful. For a better understanding of commonalities between the two industries and how to verify compliant and trustworthy financial institutions for cannabis businesses, mycannabis.com had the pleasure of speaking with Mike Kennedy, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Green Check Verified.

What subjects did you study while attending Southern Connecticut State University, and what student organizations were you involved with? How would you say those organizations helped you develop both leadership and effective communication skills as well?

I earned a B.S. in Business Management at SCSU. Beyond core coursework in marketing strategy, organizational behavior, and statistics, I was active in the Econ club and served as president of the Men’s Rugby team for 3 years. During my time at SCSU I also formed my first business, a contracting company, while working full time in the service industry. These roles and experiences taught me many things – from financial planning and project management, to building consensus across diverse viewpoints, leadership and people management, as well as strategic planning and organization administration. I lean on these skills heavily as we build the future of cannabis banking at Green Check.

While owning and operating Let Mikey Fix It, LLC, what were the most valuable lessons you learned in both construction/contracting and overall entrepreneurship as well?

Running my own contracting business taught me accountability at every level: if a project ran late or a material order went wrong, it was on me to own the solution. I learned to translate customer needs into clear scopes of work, negotiate with suppliers, manage cash flow, and balance quality against tight budgets. That hands-on grit and adaptability, pivoting between hands-on labor and high-level planning, became the foundation for everything I’ve done since. I pride myself on being able to understand when and how to change altitude – that is, when do I need to roll up my sleeves and fix or build something, versus when do I need to step back and develop a more strategic approach to creating value. This skillset, honed over my entire career, is a big part of what I attribute my success in the start up world to. When building and scaling a business – any business – it’s critical to know when you must adjust your approach otherwise you risk missing opportunities or allowing small problems to compound into larger ones.

How did you join the team at Continuity Control, and what caught your interest about working there after first owning a contracting company and then working in digital marketing?

While I enjoyed running a contracting company, I was also becoming increasingly more interested in how technology could be used to scale business opportunities. I decided to wind down the contracting business and enter the technology industry. After a stint in digital marketing, I was recruited as the 20th employee of the banking compliance startup, Continuity Control. Continuity was working on leveraging technology to address the rising costs of compliance that disproportionally affected community banks and credit unions. As a small business owner, I learned first hand the importance these smaller financial institutions make in helping folks like me run their businesses, and was also aware of the steady decline of these community-focused institutions who were losing ground to the big banks. The opportunity to apply my entrepreneurial problem-solving to this application immediately appealed to me. I joined as a strategist and quickly moved to a leadership position overseeing all efforts related to helping financial service providers tackle compliance and growth goals. This was an ideal bridge between my solution-grounded pragmatism and emerging tech skills.

How does Continuity Control assist its clients in “surviving and thriving,” and how personalized or otherwise specific were the needs of those clients?

Much like the cannabis industry, financial institutions operate in a highly regulated environment, which introduces time, cost, and risk to virtually every aspect of the business. Continuity focuses on reducing this regulatory burden by leveraging technology to assist financial institutions with process automation, regulatory change management, and integrated monitoring and oversight tools. These solutions make it easier for financial institutions, particularly community banks and credit unions, to continue growing and serving the businesses and consumers of “Main Street” and remain competitive with the mega banks.

What were some examples of widespread issues that your financial institution clients faced? And were those issues more commonplace in certain states than in other states or were these issues common throughout all financial institutions?

Almost universally, I saw banks and credit unions struggling with outdated tech stacks that made it hard to track risk, onboard new accounts efficiently, or measure marketing ROI. Some in highly regulated states (like California or New York) were contending with extra layers of state-level compliance, but the underlying challenges—fragmented data, manual processes, and difficulty demonstrating ROI to executives—were consistent nationwide.

What inspired you to found Green Check Verified, and what gaps in access to services did you hope to fill with this business? Did you have any initial concerns about creating a business that openly catered to the federally illegal cannabis industry?

We launched Green Check in 2017 after witnessing first-hand how cannabis entrepreneurs were shut out of mainstream banking, even when they were the most transparent, compliant businesses you could imagine. This observation, combined with community banks and credit unions’ goals to grow deposits and fee revenue felt like an obvious application for technology to unlock critical growth opportunities. Our goal was to build a bridge: a network of federally insured financial institutions paired with a compliance-first SaaS platform, so state-legal cannabis operators could finally access true banking without fear or excessive costs. We did worry about reputational risk and potential federal pushback, but we worked closely with the regulatory community throughout the design phase and got ample buy-in from a wide array of stakeholders before we even wrote the first line of code.

Flash forward to 2025, and we now support roughly 14,000 cannabis operators processing over $1b in deposits per month across our network of banking clients. By embedding rigorous underwriting and reporting controls from day one, we turned what most viewed as a “risk” into a competitive advantage for our clients, allowing them to grow and prosper.

When it comes to access to proper financial service providers and FDIC-insured banks, what issues and disadvantages do cannabis businesses face due to the federal Schedule I status?

Because cannabis remains Schedule I federally, many financial institutions are reluctant to offer services to cannabis operators. The financial services industry views any cannabis-related funds as a money-laundering risk, even when state law is explicit and federal regulators have issued guidance for FIs to follow. The reality is that banking cannabis is not illegal, but it does come with some additional compliance overhead in terms of underwriting, monitoring, and reporting. This often results in higher fees for cannabis businesses, fewer lending opportunities, and limited access to digital payments or lending, all of which hinder growth and put safe, compliant operators at a disadvantage.

Given the aforementioned Schedule I status and the often confusing intertwining of federal law with statewide-only financial service providers, how does Green Check ensure that its affiliated businesses/service providers are professional and upstanding?

On the banking side, we only work with federally insured financial institutions that are committed to helping serve the needs of cannabis operators. We work hand-in-hand with our FI clients to help them develop a compliant, efficient, and sensible cannabis banking program that ensures all operators are able to bank just like any other business. Additionally, we partner with other financial service organizations such as non-bank lenders, payroll providers, insurance carriers, and the like. We take a similar approach with these partnerships and conduct thorough vetting on an initial and ongoing basis to ensure we’re creating a healthy ecosystem of best-of-breed service providers supporting the cannabis industry.

Legally, what would need to happen on the federal level for American cannabis businesses to have proper access to FDIC-insured banks and other very necessary financial services? Would a federal rescheduling to Schedule III be the required reform, or would a reform of Tax Code 280E also be required? Perhaps a bill in the United States Legislature?

Cannabis businesses have access to proper FDIC-insured banks today! Green Check works with nearly 200 banks and credit unions that are engaged with the cannabis industry. Our technology automates the additional compliance overhead, resulting in less manual effort and therefore lower fees to the operator. Our mission is to connect every cannabis operator with the financial services they need to grow, so of course we support federal rescheduling or descheduling, SAFE or SAFER Act, or any other improvement to the legal landscape. With that said, we’re not waiting around for things to change – we’re delivering solutions today so operators can be successful, even in the current challenging landscape.

Thank you for joining us, Mike! For more information on Green Check Verified and it’s services, please visit it’s website.