Customers purchase recreational marijuana at the Cultivate dispensary on the first day of legal sales in Leicester in 2019. Photo by Steven Senne | Associated Press

A Boston-based fintech has launched a new service that would bring consumer credit payments to the state’s marijuana businesses for the first time.

KindTap Technologies announced the launch of a consumer credit payments and loyalty product Tuesday at a conference organized by local law firm Burns & Levinson on the state of the cannabis industry.

The service offers consumers revolving lines of credit for purchases at marijuana shops and allows merchants to “seamlessly” accept digital credit payments, the company said in an announcement. Consumers will be able to pay in-store or online for pre-orders and deliveries.

The service is an attempt to get around federal rules that effectively force consumers to pay for marijuana at state-licensed stores in cash. The service is also intended to help retailers, many of whom have to handle large amounts of cash daily, creating security and compliance risks.

“Without a form of digital credit payments in the cannabis industry, transactions must be made in cash or via cashless ATM transactions, putting dispensaries, their employees and consumers at risk,” Cathy Corby Iannuzzelli, co-founder and chief payments officer of KindTap, said in a statement. “After two years of product research and development, we’re thrilled to launch our KindTap credit solution and bring greater safety and efficiency to the cannabis industry with frictionless payments. Legal cannabis businesses have long been denied basic financial resources and banking services, and consumers are forced to deal with unnecessary charges and complexities in the shopping experience. KindTap is on a mission to bring the payment process one step closer to the mainstream efficiency cannabis consumers and merchants expect — and deserve.”