Multinational investment bank, Citi, is planning to offer crypto services to its clients following a significant “increase in interest” from its customers, and has promised to take time with its planning.
Citi Hops onto the Crypto Train
Citi joins fellow American banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, on the steadily moving crypto train.
However, the importance of Citi’s recent decision cannot be understated. Being the third largest banking institution in America, only behind JP Morgan and Bank of America, Citi becomes the first major bank to publicly announce an interest in offering cryptocurrency services.
Itay Tuchman, Global Head of Foreign Exchange at Citi, told Financial Times on Friday that the bank had been noticing a growing interest in Bitcoin from large clients for months, and simply could not ignore it.
“We are considering where we can best service clients,” says Tuchman.
Itay explains that it is in the bank’s interests to serve the clients in the best ways possible, and offering crypto trading and custody services might just be the next step to achieving that.
However, Tuchman stressed that the bank would not be rushing its plans and would be bidding its time to prepare the best services possible. There is hardly a competition to get in first now, according to Tuchman, especially when it is “clear” the crypto industry is here to stay.
Citi’s stance on crypto’s steady moving journey into the mainstream is not a new one. In a report published in March, the bank recognized that bitcoin was quickly “increasing its perception towards becoming mainstream.”
Crypto Mass Adoption on the Way
Just like Citi recognized in their report in March, Bitcoin’s journey into mainstream culture continues to remain inevitable.
The bank has now joined a growing number of banks to indicate interest in offering crypto trading services to its customers. On Tuesday, the NYDIG announced hundreds of American Banks would be providing support for Bitcoin before the end of the year, making it easy for bank customers to buy bitcoin with their bank accounts.
Following a similar trend, Paypal’s CEO revealed on Wednesday that its decision to provide cryptocurrency services to its customers last October was so important, it spiked an increase in revenue profits by more than 1200 percent using a YOY basis.
