As financial institutions look to provide banking services to marijuana businesses, Wall Street investors are beginning to view the industry as the next Silicon Valley, despite enhanced compliance scrutiny from regulators.

"Banking is a real issue, so being a public company, we have to put standard operating procedures in place that make it auditable so that an auditor can stamp off on it," Mike Nahass, director of operations for Terra Tech, a cannabis-focused agriculture company, told CU Times. "We have that challenge of checks and balances. The problem is the government is forcing people in this industry to stay in the black market. It doesn't make sense."

Nahass, a former senior vice president and complex manager at Morgan Stanley, added, "If they would just allow the banks to accept the deposits … the fear they have is the money is coming from a source or a person that is not real."