Metropolitan Bank (MCB), a New York-based traditional bank and one of the first banks to ever jump into offering crypto-based products to clients, is now heading the crypto exit door.
The decision to dump crypto-based offerings is said to be due to aggressive regulatory changes.
- Metropolitan Commercial Bank is one of the first traditional banks to ever support and offer crypto-related financial products
- Mark DeFazio announced that MCB will start to reduce their crypto offerings come 2023
- MCB decision triggered by regulatory issues
On Monday, Mark DeFazio, Metropolitan Commercial Bank CEO and President, announced that the company will reduce its crypto-based offering for 2023. And this has particularly been a surprise for many investors and clients as MCB is known to be one of the pioneering traditional banks to have these crypto-related offerings.
Metropolitan Bank Heading The Exit Door
With over $6.5 billion worth of assets, Metropolitan Commercial Bank has decided to leave and dump the crypto space.
It can be recalled that MCB offered crypto credit cards way back in 2018, among other crypto-related financial initiatives, and now it’s going for the exit door.
According to DeFazio:
“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.”
Image: KITCO
MCB is unfazed, and confident, and expects only a small amount of financial impact once it leaves the crypto arena. Currently, the bank has four crypto-related assets that comprise 7% of deposits and 1.5% of revenues.
Metropolitan Bank receding from offering crypto-related products may also have been brought about by the downfall of the FTX exchange. Apart from that, the crypto space has been filled with bad news with massive layoffs, legal issues, and declining deposits.
Evidently, MCB states that the bank has no outstanding debts or loans to its crypto-related clients and that it doesn’t currently hold any crypto assets.
No Longer A ‘Serious Industry’ For Metropolitan Bank
Further, according to DeFazio:
“Crypto-related clients, assets, and deposits have never represented a material portion of the company’s business and have never exposed the company to material financial risks.”
Crypto total market cap at $847 billion on the daily chart | Chart: TradingView.com
Nick Rosenberg, Metropolitan Bank chief technology officer, confirmed their support in crypto in 2018, claiming that it is indeed a “serious industry”, which is very promising and is bound to change the phase and pace of the financial industry.
Its activities included the launch of a cryptocurrency debit card in 2018, which was one of the projects of Metropolitan Bank.
Meanwhile, it looks like there are some golden nuggets to pick up from the dot-com bubble that transpired in 2000, people panicked and grabbed the large growth stocks only to lose by 30% over the next five years.
-Featured image by John Pavlovitz
