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UPDATE (March 17, 2023, 00:10 UTC): The FDIC denied Reuters’ reporting on Thursday. Click here for more.
Reuters first reported the development on Wednesday evening, citing people familiar with the matter. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said bids for the bank must be submitted by Friday, the report said.
The New York-based bank’s weekend closure came two days after the collapse of another bank, California-based Silicon Valley Bank, and less than a week after the voluntary closure of another California-based bank, Silvergate Bank. All three of the now-defunct banks were considered crypto-friendly financial institutions.
A class-action lawsuit was filed against Signature Bank in February, alleging the bank knew about – and facilitated – the “now infamous FTX fraud.” Specifically, the suit accuses Signature Bank of having knowledge of and permitting “the commingling of [the FTX exchange’s] customer funds within its proprietary, blockchain-based payments network, Signet.”
Barney Frank, a Signature Bank board member and former Democratic U.S. congressman who co-authored the Dodd-Frank Act, also suggested the takeover was spurred by an anti-crypto motive, telling CNBC that Signature Bank was solvent – and that regulators intervened anyway to send a message.
“I think part of what happened was that regulators wanted to send a very strong anti-crypto message,” Frank told CNBC.
However, the New York Department of Financial Services has denied that crypto had anything to do with its decision to shutter Signature Bank, instead saying that was due to a “crisis of confidence” in the bank’s leadership.
The FDIC didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
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