Citigroup (C) plans to launch institutional bitcoin custody later this 12 months, a part of a broader push to combine digital property into the financial institution’s conventional monetary infrastructure.
Nisha Surendran, who heads Citi’s digital asset custody product buildout, described the initiative in a speech on the World Technique Discussion board on Thursday as an effort to “make bitcoin bankable.”
That begins with institutional-grade key administration and pockets infrastructure. However, Surendran mentioned, the ambition is broader: to convey bitcoin into the identical custody, reporting and management frameworks that shoppers already use for conventional property.
“We might be providing our shoppers a single service mannequin throughout crypto, securities and cash,” mentioned Surendran, who introduced these plans throughout the World Technique 2026 discussion board. Bitcoin positions, she mentioned, will stream into the identical reporting channels and tax workflows as equities and bonds.
Purchasers will be capable of instruct transactions by way of SWIFT, APIs or consumer interfaces, she added. “From a shopper perspective, all they need to care about is that they instruct us. We deal with all of the clearing and settlement complexity, after which we report again.”
Shopper demand
One of many causes Citi is shifting in direction of bankable bitcoin is due to shopper demand.
Citi has surveyed its shoppers, Surendran mentioned, including that they “don’t wish to deal with wallets and keys and one-time addresses.” As an alternative, they need publicity to bitcoin inside acquainted banking techniques. Citi additionally needs to allow its shoppers to cross-margin crypto and conventional property, Surendran mentioned.
She described a future account construction during which a number of asset varieties sit below a single grasp safekeeping or custody account, together with U.S. Treasuries, overseas bonds, tokenized cash market funds, and bitcoin.
“The truth that all of those property are accessible inside the similar account construction makes it simpler to make use of them for cross-margining,” she mentioned, together with the opportunity of utilizing crypto property at conventional exchanges or broker-dealers, and vice versa. Citi intends to construct infrastructure to assist that, she mentioned.
It isn’t shocking that banking giants are pushing additional into the digital asset area. Institutional buyers have been in search of publicity to the sector from conventional monetary establishments for a number of years. What started with BlackRock providing exchange-traded funds to assist extra buyers acquire publicity has now unfold to quite a few banks and monetary establishments, which proceed to combine their legacy monetary providers into the digital property sector.
For instance, Morgan Stanley, which oversees roughly $8 trillion in property, has not too long ago filed for bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana exchange-traded merchandise and is exploring pockets know-how throughout its wealth platform. It is usually rolling out spot crypto buying and selling on the E*TRADE platform and evaluating lending and yield alternatives tied to digital property.
“We have to construct this internally. We will’t simply lease the know-how,” the banking big’s not too long ago appointed head of digital property, Amy Golenberg, mentioned on the Technique World occasion in a presentation previous to Surendran.
Constructing for a 24/7 market
Citi, which connects to greater than 220 fee and settlement networks globally, has additionally begun with non-public permissioned blockchains earlier than increasing to public networks as laws turned clearer and shopper demand elevated. One thing much like what one other banking big, JPMorgan, has carried out with its JPM Coin.
One reside use case is Citi Token Companies for money, a 24/7 blockchain-based community used to maneuver cash inside Citi’s international system. “As we transfer into the world of 24/7 property like bitcoin, we undoubtedly want 24/7 U.S. {dollars} or 24/7 digital cash,” she mentioned, including that Citi’s inner techniques are being tailored for round the clock assist.
The 24/7 market can also be one thing institutional shoppers have been asking legacy monetary establishments for. The New York Inventory Alternate (NYSE) mentioned final month that it plans to introduce an around-the-clock, blockchain-based buying and selling venue for tokenized shares and exchange-traded funds later this 12 months.
NYSE’s essential competitor within the U.S., Nasdaq, revealed in December that it was planning to facilitate almost round the clock buying and selling for shares and exchange-traded merchandise (ETPs), in a bid to match the more and more international nature of economic markets and investor beh
