US seizure of a payment provider's accounts leaves EQIBank holding a fifth of its money

If $89 million is 80% of EQIBank's money, the bank had about $111 million before the seizure and holds about $22 million now ^[1][2][1][2]. A Dominica-licensed bank selling multi-currency accounts is running on that remainder ^[1][9]. Its motion for return of property and the government's forfeiture complaint sit side by side in the Eastern District of California, and no resolution had been reported as of mid-to-late September ^[11]. The reporting does not include EQIBank's deposit liabilities, so the $22 million cannot be measured against what customers are owed ^[2].

According to Crypto Briefing, the money sat in accounts tied to Capstone Ltd, a US payment provider, at Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase, moving through them as part of Capstone's payment processing ^[6][7]. EQIBank apparently kept significant funds in accounts connected to Capstone's operations, and when US authorities went after Capstone, those funds were swept up too ^[7]. The publication's wider point is that an offshore bank whose dollars pass through Wells Fargo or JPMorgan at any point in the chain is within reach of US prosecutors ^[10]. At EQIBank, that one channel held four-fifths of the bank's money ^[2].

If the reporting is right, keeping that much with a single payment partner was EQIBank's own allocation, made before prosecutors filed anything ^[7]. It left one fifth of the bank's money outside the case ^[2].

Set the $89 million claim against the $84.2 million prosecutors want forfeited and $4.8 million falls outside the complaint ^[3]. Crypto Briefing takes the gap to mean some of the seized money may not be directly contested ^[12]. Even if all $4.8 million came back, EQIBank would hold about $27 million, roughly a quarter of what it had (a better position, though still well short of the pre-seizure $111 million) ^[4].

A ruling for EQIBank on its motion would restore the bank to about $111 million ^[1]. Forfeiture of the full $84.2 million would leave it where its own September 9 warning points, toward liquidation proceedings ^[3][5]. The third outcome is that both filings stay pending for months while the bank operates on a fifth of its money ^[2]. The calendar so far favors that slow version: the complaint followed the motion by 16 days, and more than two months later neither had been resolved ^[5][11].

I think the concentration reading holds, on one condition the court has not yet tested. Crypto Briefing says whether EQIBank was a banking partner caught in the crossfire or something more directly involved is one of the key questions the court must settle ^[13]. The bank has also faced US securities fraud allegations since February 2026 ^[8]. If the court finds direct involvement, the 80% figure measures how much EQIBank had tied up in Capstone's conduct, and the case says more about EQIBank than about the risk of relying on one payment partner ^[2][13].