A lifelong regional banker, Mac Jones joins us and notes that the banking industry is a completely different animal than it was just a short time ago. He shares that two things have happened in tandem- there has been an increase in regulations on banks while bankers have come to have less of a relationship with depositors and merchants. All the while, there’s no longer true accountability in the industry. That said, Mac’s always kept that relationship with the merchant and so when legal cannabis arrived in Colorado, with an understanding of the Cole Memo’s, Mac saw no difference in cannabis merchants and provided traditional banking relationships in the industry- providing structural support for the industry. And there’s much much more.
Speaker 1: Mack Jones, a lifelong regional banker. Matt Jones joins us and notes that the banking industry is a completely different animal than it was just a short time ago. He shares that two things have happened in tandem. There's been an increase in regulations on banks while bankers have come to have less of a relationship with depositors and merchants. All the while there is no longer true accountability in the industry. That said, Max always kept that relationship with the merchant, and so when legal cannabis arrived in Colorado with an understanding of the Cole memos, Max saw no difference in cannabis merchants and provided traditional banker relationships in the industry providing structural support for the industry and there's much, much more welcoming to cannabis economy. I'm your host Seth Adler. Check us out on social with the habit can economy. That's two aunts in the word economy, one of the unsung heroes in legal cannabis. Mack Jones, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: You. Uh, so we've got the, the, the family running around here. You got five grandkids all onsite. Yes. Yeah. And uh, they range in age from young to a almost old is what I've noticed. Is that fair? Yes. You've met them all. Yeah. And your kids are, are kind of young, right? Kind of young. Right. And you, how do you feel as far as A. Are you young? Are you old? How would you answer that? Some days I feel both ways. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I have noticed as I go along here because I'm 41 years old, so I've noticed that I am realizing how uh, how dumb I am kind of week every month.
Speaker 3: Every year I'm getting dumber because of the, I'm realizing how much. I don't know. Yes, right. We're all that way. It should be. Right. So you, I mean it should we call you a banker, but I feel like you, we just talked for about two hours. I feel like you would think that was an epithet if I called you a banker. That's correct. Very much so. Are you, do you know that is the business though, right? Yes. Alright. So we're here. And how do you provide. See, I see the Sinai say low hunter. No hunter hunter, it's not so much the how did we get to log onto the Santa Fe railroad? It's means junction splitting place where the railroad goes north and south and east and west and land is a place where there are more streamlined and less water, more cows and less milk, and you can look further and see less than anywhere else in the world.
Speaker 3: I know I sound like I'm from the Chamber of Commerce. Exactly. Exactly. So this is literally, you know, this is the crossroads. Yes. In in many respects, yes. For the railroad, which was very important to the West as we opened it up. Right. And so this gets into the fact that your business is generation. Yes. Right? Yes. My grandfather came to the bank in the 19 thirties just before the depression and his first job was to take our note case meaning all the people who owed us promissory oldest loans and pledge it to the Federal Reserve so that the bank could stay open. Okay. The 19 thirties, a very specific time in finance, right? Yes. So how did he get into banking then? Really and truly chef, I think that he got in business in a little town in Wiley, I think it is working for the Federal Land Bank and someone said you ought to go to work in La. Hunta I bought in Colorado. Yes. And so he gets in and um, and then how did this become something that everybody, your father, how did your father learned from his grandfather who were talking about that this is something that should be a family business.
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's a, it used to be a pretty easy business. So I guess everybody was, took the easy way out. I got you. We'll get into that. When, when, when you came in, when, when did you start working with your dad? How, how young were you? Well, really, uh, I started when I was about 10 or 11 years old because we used to have a thing in the banking business called counter checks, meaning that it did not have your name or account number on the check. It was just a blank check and you would walk into a store
Speaker 2: and all the banks in the community would have their checks there and you would write it out for whatever it was. And there just weren't any account number. So my job, my first job was to go around and make sure that all the stores had our banks checks in it. Got It. So, so if I have a store I can use whatever I want, I can use whatever, a bag checks that I want, um, and let's just make sure that they're from, uh, from our bank. Well, yeah, that's what we. That was the goal. A little salesman ship their. Yes. And so what was the approach from a what, what was the reasoning? Well, a customer convenience and how so make sure we had our bank checks so you could buy whatever that merchant was selling, I guess for the customer and for well, both being the customer, right.
Become a member to access to webinars, quarterly reports, contributor columns, shows, excerpts, and complete podcast transcripts