On Thursday, CanPayannounced the first debit payment solution for the expanding legal marijuana industry has become available to retailers and consumers in the states of Washington, Oregon and Colorado.The service has already launched in 15 retail stores across Washington and Colorado, solving the cash-only problem that troubles the legal cannabis industry.“CanPay partners exclusively with a multi-state network of financial institutions that are banking the cannabis industry under compliance programs meeting strict federal guidelines, ensuring the continued stability and legitimacy of CanPay’s services,” the company explained.Ahead of the service’s debut, Benzinga had the chance to chat with the company’s CEO Dustin Eide.“Our history was in standard-risk payments processing… and [we] realized early on that there might be an opportunity to bring a professional approach to an industry that was highly regulated and appeared to have a lot of payment options that were subject to shutdown,” Eide commenced.

CanPay’s first objective was to find a credit card processing solution – like Visa Inc (NYSE: V) or Mastercard Inc (NYSE: MA) — that was “legitimate and transparent,” he went on to explain.“We wanted to go directly to Visa and MasterCard and find out from them what options would be available.” “We’ve been working with a number of financial institutions, mostly in Oregon, Washington and Colorado, that are openly banking the cannabis industry under compliance programs.bitcoin non vbvSo, we presented a solution that involved what we call ‘the close banking fee back loop.’” This ensured the banking institutions were compliant with the law.bitcoin jones gearWhile Visa and MasterCard thought this was an interesting idea, they passed on it because federal laws still prohibit the use and sale of marijuana, Eide continued.bitcoin-qt options

So, CanPay had to build its own debit network based on compliant banking institutions, building a solution as close to Visa-MasterCard-type network as possible.Benzinga: Some people have called you the American Express Company (NYSE: AXP) of marijuana.If you had to point out similarities with one established, well-known payments processing service like Amex, or Visa, or Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS), which would it be and why?buy bitcoin xtEide: CanPay is most similar to the Amex platform, and the reason being that CanPay is both the issuer of debit accounts to consumers, as well as the processor of payments for retailers.bitcoin poker holdemVisa and MasterCard typically use four parties in the transaction: the bank that issues the credit or debit card, the processor, the brand, and the bank that sponsors the processing of that transaction.safest bitcoin exchange

Amex, on the other hand, is basically a self-contained payment network, where they handle both sides, consumers and retailers.So, that’s what we are most like.Benzinga: How do you differentiate from offering like Tokken, which works with blockchain solutions to ensure secure payments, or others like Greenito and PayQwick?Eide: One of the main things from our standpoint that differentiates us is that CanPay is intended to be only a payment network.We are not attempting to take on the compliance on behalf of banks or credit unions.We are only working with credit unions that have approved cannabis-banking programs [...] So, only those retailers that have a depository account with one of those approved institutions are allowed to process transactions through CanPay.Benzinga: What about funding?Do you have capital raise plans in the near future?Eide: At this point, we are self-funded, and it’s sufficient for our purposes.So, at this point there is not plan, but we are certainly open to it in the future, as the need arises.

Benzinga: Would you say CanPay offers a more effective/efficient solution than BitCoin or other blockchain-based alternatives?Eide: I would say that the advantage for CanPay, in comparison to the blockchain solutions or stored value solutions, where you are pre-funding an account, is that we operate as close to traditional payment networks as is available.So, we can scale as each new state comes online with the regulated market [...] The banks and credit unions that are our partners are excited to bring us out to their cannabis banking clients as a legitimate and transparent option for them, rather than having to hide behind potentially either a hidden merchant account or some other form of payment.Finally, Eide explained how CanPay works from a consumer perspective.“A consumer signs up for his/her account inside the app, they link their checking account, and then, once they’ve done that, whenever they make a payment in the store, the app generates a unique, single-use, and expiring if not used token that contains no identifiable financial information… No matter what, that token is completely worthless outside of CanPay network, and the moment that it gets used or expires.” The CanPay app is available for both Apple Inc.

( from on a mobile device.Note: CanPay Debit has no relation with Canada’s CanPay Payroll Software Online.Image Credits: All images were provided by and used with expressed permission from CanPay.Posted-In: Fintech News Politics Topics Small Business Tech Interview General Best of Benzinga © .Benzinga does not provide investment advice.In early July 1944, delegates from 44 countries gathered at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.A three-week summit took place, at which a new system was agreed to regulate the international monetary and financial order after the Second World War.The US was already the world’s commercial powerhouse, having eclipsed the British Empire several decades earlier.America was also on course to be among the victors of “Europe’s conflict”, even though its economy was largely unscathed by war.As such, Bretton Woods was US-dominated and produced a settlement largely on US terms.Seventy years ago this week, that fateful summit ended.

Its close marked the moment the dollar’s unquestionable supremacy was secured.Since then, global commerce has been conducted largely in dollars and leading economies have held the greenback as their primary reserve currency.The same system remains intact today, with the lion’s share of commercial settlements worldwide still clearing the US banking system – even if the parties involved have nothing to do with the States.The dollar’s hegemony continues to be cemented, meanwhile, by the operations of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.Founded at Bretton Woods, they’re both Washington based, of course, and controlled by America, despite some Francophone window-dressing.The advantages this system bestows on the US are enormous.“Reserve currency status” generates huge demand for dollars from governments and companies around the world, as they’re needed for reserves and trade.This has allowed successive American administrations to spend far more, year-in year-out, than is raised in tax and export revenue.

By the early Seventies, US economic dominance was so assured that even after President Nixon reneged on the dollar’s previously unshakeable convertibility into gold, amounting to a massive default, dollar demand kept growing.So America doesn’t worry about balance of payments crises, as it can pay for imports in dollars the Federal Reserve can just print.And Washington keeps spending willy-nilly, as the world buys ever more Treasuries on the strength of regulatory imperative and the vast liquidity and size of the market for US sovereign debt.It is this “exorbitant privilege” – as French statesman Valéry Giscard d’Estaing once sourly observed – that has been the bedrock of America’s post-war hegemony.It is the status of the dollar, above all, that’s allowed Washington to get its way, putting the financial squeeze on recalcitrant countries via the IMF while funding foreign wars.To understand politics and power it pays to follow the money.And for the past 70 years, the dollar has ruled the roost.

This won’t change anytime soon.Something just took place, though, which illustrates that dollar reserve currency status won’t last forever and could be seriously diluted.Last week, seven decades on from Bretton Woods, the governments of Brazil, Russia, India and China led a conference in the Brazilian city of Fortaleza to mark the establishment of a new development bank that, whatever diplomatic niceties are put on it, is intent on competing with the IMF and World Bank.It’s long been obvious the BRICs are coming.The total annual output of these four economies has spiralled in recent years, to an astonishing $29.6  trillion (£17.3 trillion) last year on a PPP-basis adjusted for living costs.That’s within spitting distance of the $34.2 trillion generated by the US and European Union combined.America’s GDP, incidentally, was $16.8 trillion on World Bank numbers, and China’s was $16.2 trillion – within a whisker of knocking the US off its perch.The balance of global economic power is on a knife-edge.

Tomorrow is almost today.Consider also that the BRICs collectively hold sway over 50pc of global currency reserves, rising to almost three-quarters if you take the emerging markets as a whole.The G7 nations between them control only 20pc – and less than 8pc if you exclude Japan.Based on such balance sheets, we’re now seeing institutional change.The new BRICs Development Bank, modelled on the IMF, will have a $100bn currency reserve available to lend around the world, giving distressed debtor nations an alternative to the “Washington consensus”.For a long time, the BRICs have been paying in to the IMF, yet been denied additional influence over what happens to the money.Belgium has more votes than Brazil, Canada more than China.The institutions governing the global economy have failed to keep pace with reality.Modest reforms giving the large emerging markets more power, agreed with much fanfare in 2007 and again in 2010, have been stalled by Washington lawmakers.The BRICs have now called time, setting up their own, rival institution based in Shanghai.

The key to the dollar’s future is petrocurrency status – whether it’s used for trading oil and other leading commodities.Here, too, change is afoot.China’s voracious energy appetite and America’s increased focus on domestic production mean the days of dollar-priced energy look numbered.Beijing has struck numerous agreements with Brazil and India that bypass the dollar.China and Russia have also set up rouble-yuan swaps pushing America’s currency out of the picture.But if Beijing and Moscow – the word’s largest energy importer and producer respectively – drop dollar energy pricing, America’s reserve currency status could unravel.That would undermine the US Treasury market and seriously complicate Washington’s ability to finance its vast and still fast-growing $17.5  trillion of dollar-denominated debt.In May, Beijing and Moscow signed a huge multi-decade gas supply contract, to sit alongside a similar oil deal agreed in 2009.No one knows what share of this energy trade will be on a yuan-rouble basis – and the two governments aren’t saying.

This question, seemingly inane, is among the most important diplomatic issues of our time.At the moment, although Russia’s export partners do sometimes settle in roubles, most Sino-Russian trade is still in dollars.But the combination of this new gas deal, and western sanctions on Russia – has seen Moscow and Beijing step up bilateral efforts to facilitate large-scale non-dollar settlement.With western anti-Russia sanctions likely to be tightened again after the tragic shooting of a Malaysian passenger plane over Ukrainian airspace, Beijing’s response will be closely scrutinised.I, for one, expect the Chinese to say little until it’s clearly established who grounded the plane and why.Although the dollar’s reserve status won’t end overnight, the global payments system is now moving inexorably towards that outcome.The US currency accounted for just 33pc of all foreign exchange holdings in 2013, on IMF numbers, down from 55pc in 2001.Within a decade or so, a “reserve currency basket” may emerge, with central banks storing wealth in a mix of dollars, yuan, rupee, reals and roubles, as well as precious metals.