Binance says signature bank won’t support transactions for crypto exchange customers of less than $100k

The crypto friendly bank has been reducing its involvement in digital asset markets in recent weeks, part of the ongoing fallout from recent crypto industry debacles.

Signature Bank will not handle transactions of less than $100,000 for crypto exchange customers, according to a statement from exchange giant Binance.

Binance said in the statement emailed to CoinDesk that Signature had told the company that it “would no longer support “any of its crypto exchange customers with buying and selling amounts of less than 100,000 USD as of February 1, 2023,” and that this would be true for “all Signature’s crypto exchange clients.”

“As a result, some individual users” might not be able to use SWIFT bank transfers to purchase or sell digital assets “with/for USD” for smaller amounts.

Binance said that 0.01% of our average monthly users were serviced by Signature Bank, and that it was actively working to find an alternative solution."

The company added that users could continue using their accounts, including "buying and selling crypto using credit or debit cards, using one of the other fiat currencies supported by Binance."

Bloomberg first reported the news.

SWIFT is a global messaging network that allows financial services firms to send and receive money transfer instructions and other information quickly and securely.

In recent weeks, Signature and other financial services firms have been ratcheting back their involvement in crypto markets, part of the ongoing fallout from crypto exchange FTX’s implosion and other industry debacles.

In December, Signature, which has been among Wall Street’s most crypto friendly banks, said it would shrink its deposits tied to cryptocurrencies by $8 billion to $10 billion.

Nearly a quarter of the New York-based bank’s $103 billion in total deposits, or roughly 23.5%, came from the crypto industry as of September 2022. But given the recent “issues” in the space, Signature will reduce that amount to under 20% and potentially under 15% eventually, Signature CEO DePaolo said at a New York conference hosted by investment bank Goldman Sachs.

FTX was one of the bank’s clients, although the crypto exchange’s deposits with Signature amounted to less than 0.1% of the bank’s overall deposits. Still, the relationship between the two caused Signature’s shares to drop almost 20% in November.

---