Boston FinTech Circle Teams With NYC’s Signature Bank

Signature Bank

Boston-based FinTech Circle has chosen New York City-headquartered Signature Bank to become its lead financial institution to hold reserve deposits, the firm announced in a Monday (April 19) press release.

Signature Bank will “hold billions of dollars in reserve deposits related to USD Coin (USDC),” the digital dollar stablecoin, per the announcement. Signature Bank, a full-service commercial bank, is a public firm trading on Nasdaq under the ticker SBNY.

“Adding a respected, forward-thinking financial institution to our USDC reserve network is another step forward in adoption and growth for the world’s fastest-growing digital dollar currency,” said Jeremy Allaire, CEO and co-founder of Circle.

As part of a long-term plan, the two firms are also planning to integrate Circle into Signet, Signature Bank’s blockchain-based digital payments platform that enables real-time payments. “The joint technical effort to integrate Circle into Signet will enable possible future integrations of additional Circle products and services within the Bank,” per the release.

“Integration into Signet will afford many of our commercial customers real-time account USDC settlement 24/7/365,” Allaire said in the announcement.

“Many of our digital asset-based commercial clients have been requesting we include Circle in the Signet ecosystem,” said Signature Bank President and CEO Joseph J. DePaolo. “We look forward to completing this integration in the coming months. We will also seek to leverage this technical integration into future partnerships and service offerings, further strengthening the Bank’s leadership position in the digital asset space and adoption and use of USDC stable coin.”

Circle has in excess of $13 billion on deposit at financial institutions as reserves for USDC-issued tokens, per the release. 

Circle last month launched a payments tool intended to let non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces and storefronts accept credit card and crypto payments. The move is intended to attract the attention of bigger audiences. Circle is also planning new features to support USD Coin, Bitcoin and Ethereum payments.