The cannabis industry is booming. Sales for state-legal cannabis businesses are projected to reach close to $30 billion by 2025. Yet most of these businesses are still reliant on cash to run their business. And that can cause a lot of trouble.

But digital payments — and FinTech companies like AeroPay — have the opportunity to disrupt this long underserved industry. Here’s how:

Reducing Cash Management

Cannabis businesses being forced to accept almost exclusively cash means they have to do a ton of cash management. Cash management involves the collection, handling, and overall usage of cash. This process comes at a high cost to these businesses in both dollar value and time spent. It also carries the risk of theft from customers and employees.

Digital payments present a seamless method for accepting payments that mitigate — and often eliminate — these very issues. No more dealing with large amounts of cash and the security problems that come with it.

Making Tracking and Reporting Easy

Another obstacle cannabis businesses face due to their dependency on cash is accurately tracking and reporting payments. This can cause difficulty reconciling payments, scrutiny from marijuana enforcement, and complications when it comes to taxes.

With digital payments, these businesses are able to see all of the payments they’ve collected in a single, organized dashboard. No more scrambling to match the cash drawer to a pile of paper receipts.

Providing Customers More Options

Finally, having cash as the only payment option at cannabis businesses is inconvenient for their customers. It requires them to have cash on them or worse yet, succumb to unnecessary ATM fees.

Introducing digital payments provides flexibility and choice for customers at no additional cost to them. And businesses frequently benefit from higher cart and ticket values because of this. No more being cash only and losing out on customers and revenue.

The advantages of digital payments are obvious. They help level the playing field for cannabis businesses that have often been left behind by traditional financial and technology providers. With AeroPay’s suite of compliant digital payments solutions, cannabis businesses through the entire supply chain from seed-to-sale can rid themselves on the challenges they face from being cash only.