Thanks to NYDIG, customers at these banks will now trade Bitcoin via regular mobile banking apps provided by the institutions.
About 300 banks will allow their customers to buy and sell Bitcoin via their respective internet banking mobile apps. According to reports, the community banks will launch this feature over the first half of 2022 as more institutions continue to accommodate cryptocurrency offerings. The service will launch powered by the New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG).
Banks Are Noticing Customer Activity
The interested banks have been working on providing the access for the past couple of months, fine-tuning the process for public launch. An American Banker report specifies that participants have been shoring up current and possible security and regulatory issues that may stem from the new product. All necessary integrations and partnerships between the banks, their current technology vendors, and the NYDIG, now seem to be complete.
As the cryptocurrency sector gradually becomes more popular, more institutions are starting to offer related services to their customers. For many, this decision helps them get ahead of the still-budding sector. Others are simply responding to customer demands, or noticing customer activity.
With more than $1.3 billion assets, Georgia-based BankSouth is one of the institutions part of the program. According to CEO Harold Reynolds, the bank has noticed that customers are substantially into crypto. Reynolds said:
“We have seen significant activity in cryptocurrency transactions from our customer accounts, and a few investments have been rather large, so that is obviously getting our attention.”
One of the institutions, Vast Bank, has already started crypto trading and is seeing considerable results. Since October last year, the Oklahoma-based bank partnered with major crypto exchange Coinbase to provide customers with support for digital currencies. Vast Bank now provides access to 12 crypto assets.
According to Vast Bank CEO Brad Scrivner, the crypto banking launch is already a success. Scrivner specified that the bank has seen nearly five times its “historical retail customer base” in the past few months. Scrivener said the customers are spread across all 50 states and three US territories.
Bitcoin Isn’t Only Entering the Traditional Sector Through Banking Apps
Synovus Financial’s Zack Bishop also weighed in on the development. Bishop said that many banks are now inevitably paying more attention to digital assets. Bishop also specified that there is more interest in assets with verifiable proof of ownership on a blockchain. According to him, banks have only provided capital based on physical assets and may now be okay with giving the same access based on blockchain assets.
Last year, banking giant JPMorgan also partnered with NYDIG to offer wealthy private clients the opportunity to be a part of an in-house Bitcoin Fund. At the time, JPMorgan promised clients that the opportunity would be one of “the safest and cheapest bitcoin investment vehicles available on the private markets”.
Notably, JPMorgan launched this fund despite CEO Jamie Dimon’s aversion to Bitcoin. Dimon had explicitly said that people should stay away from crypto. He said:
“I don’t care about Bitcoin. I have no interest in it. On the other hand, clients are interested, and I don’t tell clients what to do.”
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