America’s Oldest Custody Bank BNY Mellon Corp to Offer Bitcoin Custody

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Bank of New York Mellon Corp, America’s oldest custody bank has announced that it would start Bitcoin holding and issuance on behalf of its clients. The bank in its official announcement noted that they would treat bitcoin like any other asset class. The bank has reportedly already informed its clients and discussing plans to bring their crypto holdings under their management.

The oldest bank in America, BNY Mellon, will hold, transfer, and buy #bitcoin for their asset management clients!

— Documenting Bitcoin 📄 (@DocumentingBTC) February 11, 2021

Roman Regelman, chief executive of BNY Mellon’s asset-servicing and digital businesses in an interview with WSJ said that the popularity of bitcoin in recent months has made it quite popular with Wall Street Fund Managers and Hedge Funds and those firms started to convey a message to the banks to treat digital assets like any other asset class as they are only going to become more popular with time.

BNY Following Fidelity’s Footsteps?

BNY won’t be the first US Financial institutions to offer Bitcoin custody service for its institutional clients, before them Fidelity Investments back in 2018 had announced the launch of Fidelity Digital Assets to help its clients to trade and store cryptocurrencies. The firm later also won the regulatory clearance a year later to operate its crypto business in New York.

BNY’s move to directly offer Bitcoin custody and treat bitcoin as any class is however a new approach from the traditional financial institution. The announcement of offering Bitcoin custody also comes on a day when the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has claimed that Central banks would never offer direct Bitcoin custody services.

BNY Mellon CEO, ‘top executives started asking to treat digital assets as they would their other holdings,’

— Documenting Bitcoin 📄 (@DocumentingBTC) February 11, 2021

The ongoing bull run has not just brought institutional investors and publically traded companies to Bitcoin but has also forced traditional financial giants such as VISA and traditional banks to offer direct Bitcoin purchase and custody services.