Dama Financial

About Dama Financial

Dama Financial provides access to banking, payments, and financial services for cash-intensive and high-risk industries, with a primary focus on the cannabis sector. The company acts as an agent for its FDIC-insured partner banks, enabling cannabis-related businesses (CRBs) to secure depository accounts and manage transactions in a compliant manner. Services include armored courier cash pickup, online and mobile banking, electronic payments (ACH/wire), check issuance, and payroll solutions.

The company was founded in 2016 by payment industry veterans Dan Henry, Anh Hatzopoulos, and George Gresham. The founders identified the significant challenge cannabis businesses faced in accessing traditional banking services due to regulatory complexities. Hatzopoulos, who previously served as CEO, has a background in scaling startups and solving financial problems for underserved communities, having worked at companies like Netscape and Netspend, where the co-founders previously worked together. In February 2023, Patrick O’Boyle, a payments industry veteran, was appointed as the new CEO. A major milestone occurred in July 2024, when Dama Financial was acquired by LeafLink to expand financial service offerings to the cannabis industry.

Dama Financial's business model involves partnering with banks to offer services to CRBs, managing the extensive due diligence and compliance required by the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and FinCEN guidance. This allows partner banks to serve the cannabis market and grow deposits without building the specialized compliance infrastructure themselves. For its cannabis clients—which span retailers, manufacturers, distributors, and cultivators—Dama provides a platform to reduce cash handling risks, pay vendors and taxes electronically, and streamline financial operations. The company's product suite has expanded to include lending, business management tools through its acquisition of Growflow, and consumer payment solutions like the Paytender digital wallet.