Signature Bank unveiled a new digital payments platform, Signet, designed to enable real-time payments for its commercial clients. Signature Bank is partnering with trueDigital Holdings, a New York-based blockchain-based infrastructure, exchange and settlement technology company, providing solutions for traditional and emerging financial markets.

The Signet Platform will leverage blockchain technology in its architecture, allowing Signature Bank’s commercial clients to make payments in U.S. dollars 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

The Signet Platform will be open to all commercial clients effective January 1, 2019 and can be accessed then at www.signet.com. Transactions made on the Signet Platform settle in real time, are safe and secure, incur no transaction fees, and require a minimum account balance of $250,000. Typically, in the case of real-time payments, funds are transferred between two different institutions. With Signet, funds are transferred in real-time between commercial clients of Signature Bank, eliminating any dependence on a third party.

The Signet Platform has been approved for use by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Deposits held within the Signet Platform are eligible for FDIC insurance, up to the legal insurable amounts defined by the FDIC.

“The ability to transmit funds between approved, fully vetted commercial clients of the Bank at all times is very valuable, especially in light of the increasing speed and frequency at which they conduct their business. As we have been stating, Signature Bank has made a commitment to invest in its technology infrastructure, and the Signet Platform is indicative of this investment along with the implementation of new systems for loan operations, credit approvals and foreign exchange. We believe our new Signet program will further differentiate Signature Bank and arm our commercial clients with more of the types of tools and capabilities they need to successfully operate their businesses in our fast-changing, technology-based economy,” explained Joseph J. DePaolo, president and chief executive officer at Signature Bank.

“It is gratifying to have the support of Superintendent Vullo and the Department of Financial Services. Through regulated innovation, we were able to turn our vision into a reality. It is clear the Superintendent and Department of Financial Services have thoroughly researched the financial technology arena and understand how it impacts the future of financial services. We look forward to working closely with their team to continue to transform digitally,” DePaolo concluded.

Scott A. Shay, chairman of the board, added: “Signet will quickly prove to be extremely beneficial and revolutionary for our commercial clients as they will now be afforded the opportunity to make instantaneous USD payments to one another in real-time (24x7x365) at no cost per transaction. There are many commercial enterprises and transactions that benefit from real-time payments capabilities, such as the wholesale energy distribution market and over-the-counter institutional trade and settlement activities, just to name a few. Signet puts Signature Bank on the cutting edge of commercial digital payments in an era when on-demand payments are fast becoming the norm, not only amongst consumers but businesses as well. This is an exciting time in financial services, and we are pioneering a payments platform to better meet our commercial clients’ evolving needs. We want to express our appreciation for the alacrity the Department of the Financial Services demonstrated in reviewing Signet.”

Sunil Hirani, Founder of trueDigital, noted: “We are pleased to partner with Signature Bank. The launch of Signet will address an obvious need that diverse ecosystems have for exchanging funds repeatedly with the same counterparty. This will significantly reduce costs, counterparty risk and settlement times.”

Signature Bank is regulated by both the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the New York State Department of Financial Services.