“A surge in interest from clients” has motivated the financial giant Citigroup to move into the world of crypto – after the bank stated that it was considering the launch of crypto trading, custody and financing services.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Itay Tuchman, Citigroup’s global head of foreign exchange, claimed the bank would not be rushed into committing itself on crypto-related matters and was still “not decided whether it will offer clients cryptocurrency-related services.”
Tuchman stated:
“There are different options from our perspective and we are considering where we can best service clients. […] We shouldn’t do anything that’s not safe and sound. We will jump in when we are confident that we can build something that benefits clients and that regulators can support. […] I don’t have any FOMO because I believe that crypto is here to stay and that we are just at the very beginning of the market. This isn’t a space race. There is room for more than just one flag.”
But it appears that Citi now realizes that crypto adoption has become inevitable for large banks, as Tuchman conceded that his firm has witnessed what he termed as “very rapid” growth in interest in bitcoin (BTC) “across a broad spectrum of clients including large asset managers.”
This interest has taken the shape of requests for “research,” while some clients reportedly “wanted to trade a range of coins through the bank and to finance deals with cryptocurrency holdings.”
However, he discounted a so-called “prop-trading effort,” whereby banks trade on their own accounts.
The development comes hot on the heels of a bullish BTC move from Goldman Sachs, which, per Bloomberg is “wading deeper into” the bitcoin market with a non-deliverable forwards offering – a derivative pegged to the price of BTC price that pays investors in fiat.
Max Minton, Goldman Sach’s Asia-Pacific digital assets lead, was quoted as stating:
“Institutional demand continues to grow significantly in this space, and being able to work with partners like Cumberland will help us expand our capabilities. [The non-deliverable forwards option is] paving the way for us to evolve our nascent cash-settled crypto-currency capabilities.”
At 06:47 UTC, BTC trades at USD 56,049 and is down by 1.5% in a day, trimming its weekly gains to less than 5%.
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Learn more:
– Bitcoin Coming to US Banks
– UK Banks Getting Tough on Bitcoin, But AML Rules Are The Real Problem
– Banks Should ‘Say Thank You, Crypto’ after Bumper Boost in Customers
– With Banks Turning to Bitcoin, Is It Finally Time to Long the Bankers?
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