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, in keeping with a report by CNBC.
The transfer marks one other step by the Wall Street 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 improvement for 2 to 3 years.
“We have various kinds of explorations,” Chatterjee advised CNBC. “We’re hoping that in the next few quarters, we can come to market with a credible custody solution that we can offer to our asset managers and other clients.”
The custody plan would give institutional purchasers a regulated approach 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, growing some custody instruments internally whereas additionally exploring exterior partnerships.
“We may have certain solutions that are completely designed and built in-house … whereas we may use a third-party, lightweight, nimble solution for other kinds of assets,” he mentioned. “We’re not currently ruling out anything.”
The custody providing would be a part of a rising portfolio of digital asset experiments at Citi. During the financial institution’s second-quarter earnings name in July, CEO Jane Fraser mentioned Citi can be exploring a stablecoin issuance, although she famous that tokenized deposits are a extra speedy focus.
Last 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.