Bank of New York Mellon Corp is now open for cryptocurrency business.
America’s oldest bank announced on Tuesday that it will start receiving its clients’ cryptocurrencies, thus becoming the first big U.S. bank to safeguard digital assets alongside traditional investments on the same platform.
In a recent news release by BNY Mellon, select institutional clients can now hold and transfer Bitcoin and ether via the bank’s platform. The bank will store clients’ private crypto keys to access the funds as well as provide bookkeeping services offered to fund managers in other financial assets, such as stocks and bonds.
Roman Regelman, CEO of Securities Services & Digital at BNY Mellon, said:
“With Digital Asset Custody, we continue our journey of trust and innovation into the evolving digital assets space, while embracing leading technology and collaborating with fintechs.”
BNY Mellon is currently 238 years old and it holds more than $43 trillion in assets under custody or administration all over the world. Last year, the oldest bank in the nation formed an enterprise Digital Assets Unit to develop digital assets solutions and a platform to bridge digital and traditional asset custody. The bank was granted approval for cryptocurrency custody earlier this September from the New York financial’s authority.
A recent survey sponsored by the bank revealed that 91% of institutional investors are interested in investing in tokenized products. Furthermore, 41% of them already hold cryptocurrency in their portfolios today, with an additional 15% planning to hold digital assets in their portfolios within the next two to five years.
Back in March, the bank was chosen by Circle as the custodian of its USD Coin reserves. BNY previously announced its partnership with digital asset technology specialists Fireblocks and Chainalysis to help traditional financial institutions track and analyze cryptocurrency products, allowing big firms to manage legal risks related to cryptocurrencies.