Metropolitan Bank Announces Full Exit From Crypto-Asset Industry: What It Means To Customers

Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp. MCB, the holding company for Metropolitan Commercial Bank, on Monday announced that it will be fully exiting the crypto-asset industry, citing recent developments in the sector and changes in the regulatory environment surrounding the banks' involvement in crypto-asset related businesses.

Metropolitan also conducted a strategic assessment of the business case for its further involvement in the industry.

Currently, the bank has four active institutional crypto-asset clients that makeup approximately 1.5% of its total revenues and 6% of its total deposits. These relationships are limited to providing a debit card, payment, and account services and the bank has no loans outstanding to any of these clients and does not hold crypto-assets on its balance sheet, Metropolitan indicated.

Bank Does Not Market Or Sell Crypto-Assets To Its Customers

Considering its decision to exit the crypto-asset industry, the bank has commenced the process of closing out its relationships with these clients and the bank expects this process to be completed in 2023.

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The bank stated that the decision will not affect customers' existing ability to send funds to, or receive funds from, crypto-asset companies they choose to do business with, or the bank's service to customers that do not have crypto-asset-related activity as a principal line of business.

"Today's announcement of our exit from the crypto-currency related asset vertical represents the culmination of a process that began in 2017 when we decided to pivot away from crypto and not grow the business," Mark R. DeFazio, President, and CEO of MCB said.

He added that crypto-related clients, assets, and deposits have never represented a material portion of the bank's business and have never exposed the institution to material financial risks.

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