The banking giant formed a new business unit that will provide crypto services for all of its wealth management clients.
Citigroup is now accelerating its plans to expand its footprint in the crypto space. On Thursday, June 24, the Wall Street banking giant launched a new business unit ‘Digital Assets Group’ that will dedicatedly operate in the crypto and the blockchain space. The bank has been working on this aspect for over the last few months. Last month in May, Citigroup executive Itay Tuchman said that Citi has received considerable demand for crypto services from its clients.
On Thursday, the banking giant also announced that its ‘Digital Assets Group’ will work along with its wealth management division. As per the memo, accessed by The Block, the banking giant said:
“Given the exciting new developments we are seeing around cryptocurrencies, tokenization, and other advances powered by blockchain technology, we are pleased to announce the formation of the Digital Assets Group”.
Alex Kriete and Greg Girasole from the Citi Global Wealth Investments (CGWI) division will look after this new project. The memo notes that “Alex and Greg will be responsible for advancing the efforts of CGWI to become a market-leading partner for our clients interested in all aspects of the digital asset space”. This includes stablecoins, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), cryptocurrencies, and central bank digital currencies.
Experiments of Citi with Crypto and Blockchain
Citigroup has been involved with different activities involving blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Back in April 2021, Citigroup partnered with IDB Bank to test cross-border payments between the US and Latin America. The banking giant leveraged EOSIO-based LACChain Blockchain to perform this experiment.
Citigroup tested this payment from the IDB headquarters in Washington DC to the Dominion Republic. Along with Citigroup several other Wall Street banking giants have also joined the crypto bandwagon. Citibank executive Itay Tuchman said they will be working on something that’s acceptable to regulators. Tuchman added:
“I believe that crypto is here to stay and that we are just at the very beginning of the market. This isn’t a space race. There is room for more than just one flag.”
Banking giant Goldman Sachs is another player making a big bang entry in the crypto sectors. Recently the bank announced its plans to offer Bitcoin and Ethereum derivative products to its clients. Earlier this day, the banking giant also tested a repo trade using JPMorgan‘s private blockchain network.
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