In June of this year, the Signet.com domain name sold byGarry Chernoff for $300,000 via Afternic. This sale is presently one of the 25 largest publicly reported domain name sales of 2018. Until recently, the buyer of the domain name was private, but we now know the domain name was acquired by Signature Bank.
Signature Bank will be using Signet.com for a proprietary digital payments platform. Per the website, the platform will officially launch on January 1, 2019. The company distributed a press release earlier this month to introduce the Signet platform. Here’s an excerpt from the release with more details about Signet:
“Signature Bank (Nasdaq: SBNY), a New York-based full-service commercial bank, announced today the unveiling of a new digital payments platform, Signet™, designed to enable real-time payments for its commercial clients. Signature Bank is partnering with trueDigital Holdings, LLC, a New York-based blockchain-based infrastructure, exchange and settlement technology company, providing solutions for traditional and emerging financial markets.
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. The Signet Platform will be open to all commercial clients effective January 1, 2019 at 12:01 A.M. Eastern Time, and can be accessed then at www.signet.com. Transactions made on the Signet 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 commercial clients of Signature Bank, eliminating any dependence on a third party.
The Signet Platform has been approved for use by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Deposits held within the Signet Platform are eligible for FDIC insurance, up to the legal insurable amounts defined by the FDIC.”
I think buying Signet.com for the platform was a smart move. A payment platform like this requires trust. Signature Bank probably could have set up a page within its current website for Signet, but having Signet.com will make it easier for customers to recall and visit. Had they gone with a longer domain name, there could have been issues with trust.
Buying the exact match domain name will make it easier for customers to access the Signet platform, will ensure the platform’s branding stands out on its own, and it will be more trusted for logins and email deliverability. I think this was a wise acquisition.
“Signet” Now there’s a name from the past…in the 70’s and 80’s i owned a company named The Collection Connection that provided specialized services for Signet Bank out of Richmond, Va. Signet was the credit card spin off and subsidiary of Bank of Virginia. Signet eventually became CapitalOne® (What’s in your Wallet™).
A friend and business peer of mine use to say, “if you need a new idea, read an old book”. The domain/name industry of today reminds me of my friends analogy. Very little about this industry is actually new, and unlike the tech industry, the domain/name industry plays to my strengths.
Bulloney re-branding as ThatNameGuy™
Time is information we don’t have
Signet.com Good aspirational brand name