Cannabis sales tracking company KIND Financial and Microsoft partnership for secure marijuana transactions

Microsoft has entered into a path-breaking partnership with a Los Angeles-based legalised cannabis sales tracking company, KIND Financial, for helping marijuana businesses to perform secure and safe transactions well within the law. Analysts have hailed this partnership stating that this could be an important step as cannabis becomes a well-accepted legal drug in the US.

Microsoft’s partnership with KIND Financial marks the start of major companies putting their moneys behind legal cannabis drugs. This is a first of its kind partnership. With the partnership in place, KIND Financial will be running new software for governments in Microsoft’s cloud Azure.

KIND's CEO David Dinenberg is of the opinion that it is very difficult to predict the future of cannabis legalisation as the industry will be subjected to strict regulations and oversights, similar to alcohol and tobacco industries.

“KIND is proud to offer governments and regulatory agencies the tools and technology to monitor cannabis compliance. I am delighted that Microsoft supports KIND's mission to build the backbone for cannabis compliance,” Dinenberg said in a press release.

A Microsoft spokesperson told the Independent that the company is supporting government partners and customers to help them meet missions. KIND will be building solutions on their government cloud so that agencies can monitor and regulate controlled items and substances. The agencies will also be able to better manage compliance with jurisdictional regulations and laws.

“KIND's strategic industry positioning, experienced team and top-notch-technology running in the Microsoft Azure Government cloud, made for an easy decision to align efforts. KIND agreed that Azure Government is the only cloud platform designed to meet government standards for the closely regulated cannabis compliance programs and we look forward to working together to help our government customers launch successful regulatory programs,” said Executive Director State and Local Government Solutions from Microsoft, Kimberly Nelson.

Washington DC, Washington State, Oregon, Colorado and Alaska have already legalised both recreational as well as medical marijuana for adults. Twenty more states have legalised only medicinal cannabis. Legalising cannabis may generate revenue worth £1 billion (AU$1.94 billion).