Bank of New York Mellon Announces Plans To Custody Bitcoin

The oldest bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, has declared plans to hold, transfer and issue Bitcoin and other virtual assets as an asset manager on behalf of its customers.

The motivation for the pronouncement purportedly came from institutional investors amidst this year’s bull season for the asset class.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, the bank is barely the primary household name in conventional finance to embrace virtual currencies. The likes of Fidelity Investments have long been in the crypto custody service domain, as per the report. Hitherto, it is the 1st national custody bank to commit to the introduction of digital asset custody for its customers later this year.

The chief executive of the bank’s asset-servicing and digital businesses, Roman Regelman is cited by the Wall Street Journal as mentioning that virtual currencies are becoming part of the mainstream.

As per the report, BNY Mellon is looking to manage digital assets with the help of a platform, presently in prototype version, that will also be used to handle conventional holdings like stocks and treasuries.

Even though BNY Mellon is pressing forward with its digital asset custody plans, Regelman however expects that full amalgamation of virtual currencies into conventional banking infrastructure might take another 3 to 5 years.