According to a report in Coindesk, the Chairman of Deltec Bank & Trust has confirmed that the letter stablecoin issuer Tether published last Thursday (to prove that it held adequate USD reserves) was indeed “authentic.”
As reported by CryptoGlobe, on 1 November 2018, Tether announced that it had set up a banking relationship with Deltec Bank, which is based in The Bahamas. To prove that it was solvent (unlike what some people were saying on Twitter and on other social median platforms), Tether provided a letter dated 1 November 2018 from its new bank that seemed to say that Tether does indeed have a balance in its USD account of $1,831,322,828:
After the publication of this letter on Tether’s website, although various media outlets (including Bloomberg) tried to get a comment from Deltec Bank, unsurprisingly, the bank’s spokeswoman, Melanie Hutcheson, refused to confirm or deny that Tether was one of their clients. However, earlier today, Coindesk said that on 3 November 2018, the Deltec Bank chairman, Jean Chalopin, had sent them the following message:
“The letter published by Tether is authentic.”
This marks the first time in the past few months (i.e. since law firm FSS was able to talk to two of Tether’s banks so that it could confirm that Tether had balances of $1,968,538,584.82 and $576,528,652.00 as of 1 June 2018) that any bank has confirmed to someone or some organization other Tether or its representatives the fact that Tether is a client.
Furthermore, in his most recent message to Coindesk, Chalopin said:
“As I am sure you know, we are restricted by laws and by our policies to comment on any matter related to our clients and even to confirm if we have or not a client… Deltec conducts all its affairs and client's matters in a manner that is fully compliant with all applicable banking regulations and consistent with our internal policies with respect to safety and sound risk management, and we can't break these rules without serious consequence… The sole fact that we are based in The Bahamas exposed us constantly to an established form of discrimination at the hand of bigger countries and other large financial institutions, under various pretexts, though we have strict and uncompromised AML/CFT policies, are fully compliant with international transparency agreements such as FATCA and CRS, and have risk management and safety financial ratios that are significantly better than most other banks… We are unfortunately used to deal[ing] with unfair attacks and unfounded statements. We live in a strange world where people can say anything they want about other people without proof or verification… In the present case, since Tether came public with our letter, the only thing I can do is to confirm that the letter published by Tether is authentic.”
Featured Image Courtesy of Deltec Bank & Trust
