By
Tolu Ajiboye
December 7th, 2023
The American banking giant will be focusing on three key initiatives – distributed ledger technology, tokenization, and digital cash.
Over the last few years, traditional banking players have been showing some affinity towards crypto assets and America’s oldest bank BNY Mellon is the latest to join the bandwagon. BNY Mellon is pushing for digital innovation while focusing on digital assets, not necessarily crypto.
Roman Regelman, CEO of securities services and digital at BNY Mellon, said that the banking is working on initiatives that involve the use of distributed ledger technology, tokenization, and digital cash. The banking giant started prioritizing crypto assets two years ago amid the rising client demand.
BNY Mellon declared its intention to securely manage, transfer, as well as facilitate the issuance of digital assets for their asset-management clientele. The American banker reported that while the bank works on digital assets, crypto isn’t its top priority.
During the first-quarter earnings call last month, BNY Mellon CEO Robin Vince emphasized the bank’s cautious approach in the crypto space while characterizing their progress as “extremely slow”.
BNY Mellon Focusing on Three Key Initiatives
As said, the American banking giant will be focusing on three key initiatives – distributed ledger technology, tokenization, and digital cash. The bank’s digital assets strategy involves crypto at a very partial level. “Crypto is an example of digital assets, but to say that digital assets are a lot more than crypto is an understatement,” said Regelman.
As part of the first initiative, BNY Mellon is looking to expand its services to include the clearing and custody of digital assets. It also involves widening their offerings to include new asset classes. “Everything that we do, we want to do for digital assets,” he said.
Secondly, BNY Mellon will prioritize the implementation of blockchain and other technology for modernizing their infrastructure, enhancing speed, real-time capabilities, and cost-effectiveness.
As part of the third initiative, BNY Mellon will explore tokenization as a means to democratize different investment opportunities. During an October 2022 study sponsored by BNY Mellon, the banking giant said that an impressive 91% of institutional investors showed interest in investing in tokenized assets.
Michael Demissie, BNY Mellon’s managing director said the study reflects “that minds are changing, with traditional investors ready to imagine a world where up to one-third of their portfolios will contain digital assets”.
Roman Regelman said that over the next 1.5 years, the bank plans to undertake several initiatives to expand its existing businesses. “In the next year to year and a half, we’re going to do a number of things to take the businesses that we have and extend them to digital assets,” he said.