Silvergate Bank named a new chief financial officer on Monday. Antonio Martino, former CFO of Atlanta-based LendingPoint, began working for parent company Silvergate Capital in September, according to an amended prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The crypto-friendly bank filed for an IPO last November, with a price target of $50 million. Some of its customers include cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp and Xapo, a company that makes a bitcoin wallet combined with a bitcoin-based debit card.
Martino joined Silvergate after working for LendingPoint for nearly two years. Prior to that, he had worked for CitiGroup Inc. for 17 years.
“Tony is an accomplished professional with over 25 years of experience in regulated financial services,” Silvergate CEO Alan Lane said in a news release. “His extensive background in finance, strategy, planning, and leading businesses through significant growth will be a valuable addition to the Silvergate executive team.”
Martino will take the place of Regan Lauer, who had served as Silvergate’s CFO since 2016. She quietly departed the company in May.
Silvergate also added Michael Lempres, an executive in residence at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, to its board of directors. Lempres previously served as chief legal and risk officer of digital currency exchange Coinbase Inc., and as senior attorney at Silicon Valley Bank.
Lane said Lempres’ diverse background in digital currency, venture capital, banking and government would make for a strong addition to SIlvergate’s board.
La Jolla-based Silvergate originally started as a traditional commercial bank, but began working with cryptocurrency clients in 2013. The bank said the move has quickly grown its customer base, with few options available to cryptocurrency companies.
Silvergate had 655 digital currency customers and $1.5 billion in noninterest-bearing deposits by the first half of 2019, according to a Sept. 18 filing. During the same period last year, the bank had 423 digital currency customers and $1.27 billion in noninterest-bearing deposits.
The majority of Silvergate’s deposits, nearly 80 percent, were noninterest-bearing accounts in the first half of 2019.
