The oldest bank in the United States is Bank of New York Mellon Corp. On Thursday, he announced that in the interests of his clients from among the asset managers, he will begin to store bitcoin and carry out transactions with it, as well as with other cryptocurrencies. This is reported by The Wall Street Journal. Over time, BNY Mellon will allow digital assets to be traded in the same system with more traditional instruments, including government bonds and shares of technology companies. The relevant plans are already being discussed with the clients.
"Digital assets are becoming part of the mainstream," said Roman Regelman, Head of Asset Services and Digital Business at BNY Mellon.
According to The Wall Street Journal, in order to introduce digital currencies into their infrastructure, traditional banks need to do a lot of work from the position of eliminating regulatory and legal risks, as well as stability. However, the continued growth of the cryptocurrency market is attracting more and more asset managers, hedge funds, and other institutional players. According to Regelman, such clients have started asking BNY Mellon to support digital assets just like any other assets at their disposal.
Fidelity Investments in October 2018 announced its intention to start storing and exchanging bitcoin for ether, and a year later received a license to conduct relevant activities in New York. However, the announcement of BNY Mellon differs from the activity of Fidelity, as this is the first time that one of the largest custodial banks reveals a roadmap that provides for the equalization of cryptocurrencies with all other assets.
It is expected that BNY Mellon customers will get access to cryptocurrency services before the end of the year. The bank expects that they will transfer their digital assets to its vaults from other places, but so far it is difficult to estimate the possible amount of proceeds. Regelman noted that until that time, asset managers had to solve such problems with the help of third-party custodial services.
In addition, BNY Mellon has already formed a team of executives who will search for opportunities to include digital assets in all areas of the bank's activities. Regelman expects that the full process of introducing cryptocurrencies into the traditional Wall Street infrastructure will take another 3-5 years.