Signature Bank partnered with trueDigital to develop Signet, a new digital payments platform designed to enable real-time payments for the bank’s commercial clients.

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. Transactions made on the 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 Signature commercial clients, eliminating any dependence on a third party.

The platform has been approved for use by the New York State Department of Financial Services, with deposits held within the platform eligible for FDIC insurance.

The Signet Platform will be open to all commercial clients effective January 1, 2019.

“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. 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,” said Joseph J. DePaolo, Signature president and CEO.

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.”