Report: Signature Bank Puts $100K Minimum on Crypto Transactions

Signature Bank has reportedly placed a new threshold on the cryptocurrency transactions it will handle.

According to crypto exchange Binance, the bank will stop supporting transactions of under $100,000 beginning Feb. 1.

“As a result, some individual users may not be able to use SWIFT bank transfers to buy or sell crypto with/for USD for amounts less than 100,000 USD,” Binance said in a statement shared with Coindesk and other media outlets Sunday (Jan. 22).

The company added that Signature has said this rule will apply to all of its crypto exchange clients and that just 0.01% of its users were served by the bank.

PYMNTS has reached out to Signature Bank for comment but has not yet received a reply.

The report comes soon after news that Signature and another bank dealing in the crypto sector had turned to the federal mortgage system to ease customer withdrawals.

Signature and Silvergate Capital have borrowed billions from Federal Home Loan Banks, the system created in the 1930s to back mortgage lending, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported this weekend.

Signature disputed the report’s findings in a statement Monday (Jan. 23), saying it does not invest or hold crypto assets and that its “relationships with clients in the crypto space are limited to U.S. dollar-denominated deposits only.”

The company also took issue with the characterization that it was trying to stave off a “flood” of withdrawals by customers, arguing that it had begun a plan last year “to purposely decrease deposits in the digital asset banking space by reducing the size of relationships.”

In December, PYMNTS noted that while 23% of the bank’s customer deposits were related to the crypto industry in mid-November, it had aimed to reduce that figure to under 15%.

“We’re not just a crypto bank and we want that to come across loud and clear,” Signature Bank Chief Operating Officer Eric Howell said during an industry conference.

To that end, the bank is “going to exit about $8 billion to $10 billion worth of deposits in that space, which we can easily cover through cash and borrowings,” he added.

Silvergate, meanwhile, recently announced a $1 billion loss for the fourth quarter of last year. During an earnings call, CEO Alan Lane said the bank plans to cease offering certain cash management services, phase out certain crypto custody services, and eliminate a portion of its digital-asset product portfolio.