SHF Holdings, Inc., doing business as Safe Harbor Financial (NASDAQ:SHFS) — a facilitator of financial services and credit solutions for the cannabis industry — confirmed the formal launch of its new small business line of credit program to long-standing clients on Wednesday.
What Happened: The program's launch includes the origination of three new lines of credit totaling $550,000 for Colorado businesses. The company didn't disclose which three operators were first to obtain credit.
"We're pleased to be able to offer our longstanding clients access to lines of credit at reasonable terms, an opportunity that is often not readily available to cannabis businesses," stated Sundie Seefried, chief executive officer of Safe Harbor Financial.
"Over the past two years, we have recognized increasing demand from small and mid-sized cannabis businesses as they are largely ignored by traditional financial institutions – even those that are currently lending to larger cannabis operators."
"The launch of our Small Business Line of Credit Program underscores our commitment to supporting the capital needs of the entire cannabis ecosystem and further expands the suite of offerings available on our lending platform," she added.
Why It Matters: The news comes some nine months after the company announced the launch of a new portfolio of credit products available to cannabis businesses nationwide.
At the time, Safe Harbor declared the new line of credit expands its growing suite of deposit and credit tools to serve a greater number of cannabis enterprises, including those that have previously faced difficulty obtaining debt financing at reasonable terms.
Under these new and expanded programs Safe Harbor is offering credit facilities ranging from $25,000 to $1 million at market-leading, normalized rates, and in many cases, these lines of credit can be obtained without hard collateral.
This initiative addresses the increasing demand from small and mid-sized cannabis businesses often overlooked by traditional financial institutions, the company said.
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The three new lines of credit were issued at normalized, non-predatory rates, without real estate collateral, utilizing instead a flexible set of underwriting standards — a key differentiator from many other available sources of cannabis industry financing.
Price Action: Safe Harbor shares closed Tuesday's session 1.51% lower at 70 cents.
Related Link: Safe Harbor Financial's 245% YoY Q1 Net Income Boost, Anticipates Capital Increase With Possible Rescheduling
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