Citi (C) plans to supply crypto custody companies in 2026, enabling the financial institution to carry native digital belongings like bitcoin and ether on behalf of purchasers, based on a report by CNBC.
The transfer marks one other step by the Wall Road financial institution into the digital asset house. Biswarup Chatterjee, Citi’s international head of partnerships and innovation for companies, mentioned the custody answer has been in growth for 2 to 3 years.
“We have now numerous sorts of explorations,” Chatterjee advised CNBC. “We’re hoping that within the subsequent few quarters, we are able to come to market with a reputable custody answer that we are able to supply to our asset managers and different purchasers.”
The custody plan would give institutional purchasers a regulated solution to retailer crypto, a chunk of infrastructure many conventional traders view as important for publicity to the sector.
Chatterjee mentioned Citi is pursuing a hybrid method, creating some custody instruments internally whereas additionally exploring exterior partnerships.
“We could have sure options which can be utterly designed and constructed in-house … whereas we could use a third-party, light-weight, nimble answer for different kinds of belongings,” he mentioned. “We’re not at present ruling out something.”
The custody providing would be part of a rising portfolio of digital asset experiments at Citi. In the course of the financial institution’s second-quarter earnings name in July, CEO Jane Fraser mentioned Citi can also be exploring a stablecoin issuance, although she famous that tokenized deposits are a extra speedy focus.
Final week, Citi Ventures invested in BVNK, a stablecoin funds startup, alongside Visa. That deal adopted earlier experiments in blockchain-based commerce finance and cross-border funds.
If launched, Citi’s custody service would place the financial institution amongst a small however rising group of conventional monetary establishments coming into the crypto again workplace.
