Reports have circulated that the Signature Bank is willing to stretch to dozens of more loans following the Federal’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to cryptocurrency businesses.
Allotted to roughly 40 firms inside the digital asset universe, the budget is estimated to be around $20 million of the $1.9 billion in PPP loans in the bank. This was confirmed by its CEO Joseph DePaolo.
As to the list, the Banks Executives would not drop names as to the nitty-gritty of the PPP loans to or but would give an exact number of firms who took out a loan through the relief program. The Signature Bank is pegged at 1.9 billion in loans accounts for roughly .55% of the entire $350 billion paid through the U.S. Small Business Administration.).
Moreover, public records depict the story that the Signature bank release loans to various crypto big wigs and luminary firms in the space, which involved Ethereum venture studio ConsenSys, VC firm Polychain Capital and crypto lender Celsius Network, to name a few.
Besides, DePaolo said the bank’s crypto PPP loan volume was because other banks serving crypto lack the resources to offer the same kind of program.
At least $30 million had been extended to crypto companies by several banks in previous reports, including JPMorgan Chase, Cross River Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, and others.
Moreover, the news would soon require to get a more profound need in the crypto industry for relief in the wake of the global economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the same way, Signature’s program shows the bank’s commitment to the digital asset space.
He, even Signature’s business is primarily aimed at serving high-net-worth individuals, and it does label it as a crypto bank or refer to its digital asset team as a crypto banking division, the bank did amass in $1 billion in deposits from the sector in the second quarter 2020 alone.
“I believe I said it about a year and a half ago, that if you weren’t into blockchain technology and the digital world in five years, you would have a problem as a bank. There are three and a half years left, and it may be sooner,” DePaolo told CoinDesk in a recent interview. “I think the situation we have right now with this pandemic and the quagmire, it’s going to make the public look at digital currencies.”
Seibert added that Signet has the same capabilities as the Silvergate Exchange Network but is built on the blockchain versus its internal systems.
“We have the same ecosystem they have and did it in under three years,” he further said. On the other hand, the bank started by serving exchanges, which Seibert calls “the octopus” because several firms that need banking services in crypto are tied directly to the businesses.
He also disclosed that “The bank now serves proprietary traders, hedge funds, custody firms, mining farms and other verticals in the space.”
The Signature does pay off well in the digital asset space carefully, to counterbalance transactional costs for traditional payment rails (wires and ACH payments).
“Ideally we would like to launch that sooner rather than later, hopefully, next year,” Seibert quipped in the recent interview.
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