Signature Bank

Business Banking

Signature Bank provides financial guidance and a suite of products to help businesses succeed, including:

Branches and locations

Signature Bank operates 30 branches throughout metropolitan New York and in the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Westchester, Staten Island, Suffolk, Fairfield and Nassau. The Bank’s growing network of private client banking teams serves the needs of privately owned businesses, their owners and senior managers.

Overview

Signature Bank offers business and personal banking products and services. Its specialty finance subsidiary, Signature Financial, LLC, provides equipment finance and leasing. Signature Securities Group Corporation, a wholly owned Bank subsidiary, is a licensed broker-dealer, investment adviser and member FINRA/SIPC, offering investment, brokerage, asset management and insurance products and services.

With currently about $39 billion in assets Signature Bank is one of the 50-biggest banks in the U.S. Since commencing operations in May 2001, the Bank has grown to $39.05 billion in assets, $29.04 billion in loans, $31.86 billion in deposits, $3.61 billion in equity capital and $3.35 billion in other assets under management as of December 31, 2016. Signature Bank has been called “NY’s most successful bank” by Crain’s New York Business and was ranked as The Best Business Bank by the readers of The New York Law Journal in the publication’s 2016 survey for the third consecutive year. In the survey, Signature Bank also ranked as one of the Top 3 The Best Attorney Escrow Services Providers and was awarded second place in The Best Private Bank category.

For 2015, Forbes ranked Signature Bank as #1 in its America’s Best & Worst Banks evaluation. Forbes’ 2016 ranking of Signature Bank as #6 marked the sixth consecutive year that the Bank was among the Forbes top ten. In addition, Forbes has rated Signature Bank as one of America’s Fifty Most Trustworthy Financial Companies, based on data from proprietary ratings provider and investment advisor GMI Ratings. GMI Ratings reviews the accounting and governance behaviors of more than 8,000 publicly traded companies in North America to measure a company’s credibility.

Prominent figures at the bank include former Congressman Barney Frank, who sits on the board of directors, Alfonse D’Amato, also a board member and a former U.S. Senator and Hip-hop producer Irv “Gotti” Lorenzo, who calls himself a Signature customer for life after the bank stood by him when he was facing money-laundering charges.

Hip-hop producer Irv “Gotti” Lorenzo, who calls himself a Signature customer for life after the bank stood by him when he was facing money-laundering charges. Signature said it warned Mr. Lorenzo that it would close the account if he was convicted. The bank said it has strong anti-money-laundering controls and has recently increased spending on compliance.

The bank was involved in a controversy in early 2016, when some investors filed suit against Signature after the company lost $66 million of investor cash in a ponzi scheme run by William Landberg, a money manager who pleaded guilty to the crime. Investors allege that Signature helped Landberg by ordering him to shift money around dozens of accounts to cover up long-term overdrafts. Landberg was sentenced for three and a half years federal prison. A spokeswoman for Signature said the bank “vigorously denies” any accusations of wrongdoing, saying it was also a victim in the fraud and did not benefit from Mr. Landberg’s actions. Arguments were recently made in a motion to dismiss the case.“We look forward to these allegations being determined as false, and the claims denied,” the bank said in its statement.

Business Model

Private Client Banking teams are the keystone to the bank’s incredible success, growing from a startup in 2000 to $33 billion in assets, and currently on a run of 25 consecutive quarters of record earnings. “Everyone talks about relationship Banking,” DePaolo said. “What sets us apart is that we actually do it, not talk about it.” Signature Bank’s business exploded through word of mouth. The company spends no money on traditional advertising, marketing or recruiting. According to Sandler O’Neill + partners, L.P., Signature Bank has a very unusual model, and in conjunction with that they’re executing the model in one of strongest markets on the East coast and maybe in the country.