Fourteen states have improved public access to cannabis business licensing information since last year, according to CRB Monitor’s latest state transparency scorecard, making it easier for financial institutions to know their customers.
Recognizing that access to business information helps banks to compliantly serve the cannabis industry, CRB Monitor created a rating system for state cannabis regulators. The Nashville-based data firm released the 2025 Cannabis Regulatory Data Transparency Scorecard at the CANNRA External Stakeholder Meeting in early June.
“Better regulator transparency directly translates to lower compliance costs for banks and credit unions operating in the cannabis industry, and therefore allows for more financial services at lower cost,” said CRB Monitor founder and Chief Executive Officer Steven Kemmerling.
CRB Monitor maintains a database of approximately 95,000 plant-touching cannabis-related businesses and their controlling companies (Tier 1). The company’s data team, led by Jill Seaks, regularly gathers information from hundreds of sources to build robust cannabis business profiles that help banks and credit unions follow FinCEN anti-money laundering banking regulations.
In addition to reducing due-diligence costs, better access to clear, standardized licensing and disciplinary data simplifies Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) filings and supports bank exam readiness.
“Every compliance officer at a financial institution serving this space needs to answer the same basic question efficiently and cost effectively: How do we know this cannabis business is legitimate?” said Kemmerling. “Without accurate, complete and timely data, this can be hard and expensive to answer.”
For the scorecard, CRB Monitor’s data team grades 50 agencies across legal cannabis states, territories and the District of Columbia on how much data they make publicly available. On a scale of 1 to 5, the agencies are evaluated on three categories — business information, license information and ownership information — for a total 15 points. This is the second year CRB Monitor has created the scorecard.
Alaska, Maine, Connecticut maintain perfect scores
“While some transparency scores have dropped, generally over the past 12 months regulators have stepped up their transparency game. That’s good news for cannabis banking and cannabis operators,” Kemmerling said.
Five states had perfect scores across the board: Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont. Hawaii and Vermont improved by two, while the other states were unchanged from last year.
Spokespeople for the regulators in Alaska, Connecticut and Vermont said they were proud of how their states make information available to the public.
“This is an emergent industry, and we’ve had our share of challenges as we’ve created the regulatory framework,” said Lauren Rice, public information officer for the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development, noting Alaska’s vast size and not all areas have access to the technology or resources necessary for seamless data collection.
“We are still in the process of building and changing some of our tracking and reporting systems, but we look forward to continuing to work with industry to ensure that our regulations are clear and that products available to Alaskans are safe,” she said.
Kaitlyn Krasselt, director of communications for the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection, said, “Making it easy for anyone to access this information through our website helps consumers make informed decisions, provides public data for researchers, financial institutions and others to use to understand the cannabis market in Connecticut, and reduces incoming requests for information to the department so that we can focus our efforts on regulation of the market, enforcement efforts, and protecting public health and safety.”
In Vermont, Patrick Crowley, outreach and education manager for the Cannabis Control Board, said the board believes in being good stewards of public information.
“With so much scrutiny of cannabis, we believe that transparency is important for building public trust. Vermont’s Public Records Act also serves as a template for all Vermont state agencies, so our state has set a strong foundation of maintaining access to public records,” he said.
Montana, Arkansas, D.C. make strong gains
Montana’s Cannabis Control Division improved the most, increasing its score by seven points for a total of 12. It scored perfectly for business and ownership information but received only two points for licensing information. The category includes license locations, expiration dates and inclusion of all stages of a license lifecycle.
“At the beginning of the year, Montana started posting beneficial owner data, which moved its score in that category from one to five,” said Seaks. Licensing information also went up by one point because the state also started releasing unique license numbers.
Both the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission and the D.C. Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration improved by four points. Arkansas’ score is 13. Despite the increase, D.C. scored only 10 because it had a 1 in owner information.
However, Seaks emphasized that the scorecard is a snapshot in time reflecting available information at the time of publication. “The scorecard is not static. It can change,” she said.
For example, since the scorecard was published, D.C. released ownership information, which would increase its score in that category to 5, she said.
Other states that marked improvement were Delaware, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
Four states dropped. New York and Oklahoma lost two points for total scores of 10 and 7, respectively. New Mexico at 11 and Oregon at 14 each fell by one point since last year.
Seaks said some of the score changes are because states are switching to new data systems and it can take time to get reports that include all the information, which is the case for Oregon and New Mexico.
In New York, regulators had been releasing beneficial owner records for medical use. “The same is not true for the large and expanded adult-use market,” she said.
The transparency scorecard also identifies 30 regulators that release enforcement actions. Because many states are still launching their licensing programs or are just beginning enforcement actions, this category is not given a numerical score.
Since the scorecard was released, regulators have reached out to understand their score and supply more information.
“Some of the regulators are being responsive to be sure they’re providing the information banking clients need,” Seaks said.
