If you’re a retail merchant selling cannibidiol (CBD) products, chances are you’ve hit a few bumps along the road to success. And chances are that finding a payment processing partner has been one, or more, of those bumps. Because truth is there are many merchant services companies that say they can support payment card acceptance by CBD merchants, but when the rubber hits the road and CBD sales start humming along, they often put on the brakes.

We saw this play out recently, when a leading bank-owned merchant services company, Elavon, started actively soliciting CBD merchants, only to terminate the card-acceptance agreements it had with CBD merchants a few months later.

CBD has gained significant notoriety in recent years for its health benefits, such as relief from pain, anxiety, and the effects of epilepsy and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). CBD can be used in numerous forms, including in vape pens, as tinctures or topicals, or it can be added to foods, everything from gummies to coffee and burgers. While CBD can be derived from the same plants as marijuana, it doesn’t get users “high” the way marijuana does.

CBD is no fringe fad. Depending on which analysts you read, the U.S. market for CBD products was at least $500 million last year and could grow to a $20 billion market by 2022. A legal market this large – the 2018 Farm Bill legalized CBD derived from hemp plants – needs access to modern methods of payments, like credit and debit cards. By refusing card acceptance accounts to CBD merchants just because they sell a product that derives from a plant that might also produce a federally-banned substance (marijuana), merchant services companies are setting up a classic situation of guilt by association.

Paybotic rejects this notion of guilt by association. We have experience working with CBD merchants throughout the U.S., both retail and online sellers of CBD products. And we’ve built a proven track record on state-of-the-art technologies and domestic bank alliances that make it possible for CBD merchants to accept card payments. No ifs, ands or buts about it.

So if you’re a CBD merchant and you want to accept cards and other types of electronic payments, like mobile, call Paybotic today, and let us help you navigate the road to business success.