Earlier this year, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Kratom Consumer Protection Act, which enacts several new rules for the sale and purchase of Kratom products into law. While this law seeks to protect both consumers and Kratom merchants, it has already created a significant challenge as many financial institutions are still unsure how to handle the new requirements. In this highly-regulated and fast-evolving space, this is just one of the many challenges merchants face daily. These enterprises often leave them underbanked and in a financial services desert. Enter WAAVE: a game-changing platform reimagining the payments landscape for the alternative products markets.

Under the leadership of its CEO, Silvana Carpaneli-Hayes, WAAVE has made significant headway in this space. Currently, it is the only payment enabler with US-based bank approval to support online sales for CBD, Kratom, and Hemp seed. As a leader in the industry, WAAVE stands out for being a one-of-a-kind, compliance-driven payment enabler with the ability to monitor transactions in real time. The platform safeguards all parties—merchant, buyer, and financial institution—by applying over 35 data points to each transaction and automatically blocking orders that are against regulations. It also monitors age gates, ID verification requirements, legal disclaimers, and even COA management, among other things.

As Carpaneli-Hayes puts it, it’s a real game changer for merchants in the fast-paced alternative markets. “If you are a Kratom seller, for example, you live in constant fear of the banks, and you wonder if any accidental transgression could get your Merchant Account terminated and land you on the MATCH list,” Carpaneli-Hayes explains, “it used to be common practice for merchants to have a backup processor just in case!” WAAVE alleviates these fears and ensures accidental transgressions don’t happen.

Carpaneli-Hayes points out that most merchants do not mind the regulations governing their industries, but they’re worried about all the changes and how they can easily reverse course on an entire industry. During the Alternative Products Expo held in Fort Lauderdale in March, the WAAVE team got to chat with many local merchants who expressed their fears concerning the industry’s future.

“There was fear in the air as we all knew increased regulations were looming,” Carpaneli-Hayes recounts, “a High-Compliance industry can have different regulations at the Federal, State, and City level, such is the case for all the Alternative Products in the market today. CBD, Cannabinoids, Hemp, Kratom, Botanicals, and many more.”

With WAAVE’s proprietary technology, implementing takes minutes. “Whether we are adding specific checks for an entire product category or implementing ID verification requirements for a single item in a single city, we do the compliance heavy lifting so our merchants only have to worry about growing their business,” Carpaneli-Hayes shares, “our banking partners rely on us to move at the speed of the regulation changes so they can confidently continue providing payment processing to our customers.”

This innovation is one of the reasons WAAVE has grown so fast over the past 24 months. The company has also garnered recognition from many stakeholders, including the “Top Ten Credit Card Processors'' by the Financial Services Review in 2023. As they grow, Carpaneli-Hayes and WAAVE are committed to evolving alongside their merchants, offering flexible solutions to their changing needs. Their ultimate goal is to shake off the high-risk label, ensuring their customers are afforded the same opportunities as other e-commerce businesses. 

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