Metropolitan Commercial Bank Requests Closure of Tether Accounts

By Prashant Jha

The Metropolitan Commercial Bank of New York, has, according to recent reports, requested Tether, the company behind the stablecoin USDT, to close all the accounts it holds with the bank. Tether, along with the companies affiliated to it, have held accounts with the Metropolitan Commercial Bank for a period of almost six months now. But recently, it has been reported, the bank has requested a closure of the three accounts that are held by the company with the bank.

Why has such a request been made. It seems that a lack of adequate financial activity on Tether’s part seems to have been the culprit. A spokesperson from the bank told a crypto news media outlet that the Tether accounts had not had much activity since they had been opened. The spokesperson reportedly explained the move, saying:

“Metropolitan Commercial Bank had limited, corporate operating accounts with Tether Holdings LTD, iFinex Inc, and Digfinex Inc, all with negligible activity, and requested the accounts to be closed after less than 5 months of the accounts being opened.”

According to recent reports, we also understand that the office of the New York Attorney General submitted nearly 30 documents to prove that Tether and the leading crypto exchange BitFinex, had actually been operating within the jurisdiction of New York, even though the defendants had claimed otherwise.

Earlier this month, as we have reported, the BitFinex exchange also claimed that it had managed to repay the outstanding loan of $100 million to Tether by making a transfer of that amount to Tether’s bank account. Explaining the decision, BitFinex had written:

“Also on July 1st, Bitfinex fully prepaid all interest accrued under the loan facility to Tether up to the end of day on June 30, 2019, also in fiat.”

Clearly, Tether has been in the news for a lot of wrong reasons lately and the latest headline is not looking too positive either.