Large French bank will store bitcoin

Last Updated: 21 July 2022

BNP Paribas is entering the crypto market. The bank is going to store crypto for customers with the help of a Swiss company.

Custody

According to Coindesk, the French bank, BNP Paribas will offer the possibility to store crypto for its customers. According to three Coindesk sources, to be able to offer this service, BNP is going to collaborate with the company Metaco. This Swiss digital asset storage company is often used by institutional parties that want something to do with crypto for their clients.

[NEW] BNP Paribas, A Major French Bank, Enters The Cryptocurrency Custody Market + https://t.co/Fqyq6MketO #bitcoin #btc #cryptocurrency #crypto #blockchain

— r/CryptoCurrency (@rCryptoReddit) July 20, 2022

It happens regularly that large banks announce that they will enter the crypto market. What makes this deal special is that BNP Paribas Securities Services is a big player worldwide. It has almost $13 trillion in assets under management. By the way, neither BNP Paribas nor Metaco has confirmed the news yet.

Swiss custodian in the background

Metaco is active in the French market. A while ago, the Swiss were associated with Societé General, another large bank that wanted to get involved in storing crypto currency for clients. Confirmed deals are also in place with Citigroup, BBVA, Zodia Custody, DBS, and UnionBank Philippines.

For Societe General and Citi, Metaco focuses on security tokens, which are for examples of tokenised shares or other financial products, and less on crypto-currencies themselves. Nevertheless, it all contributes to the adoption of crypto-currencies by institutional parties.

Metaco already mentioned that it is a trend among French banks to get into crypto-currencies. After parties have been quietly preparing to offer crypto-currency or tokenised shares and other products under the radar in recent years, French institutional parties are now coming out with their developed products.

“The series of banks that were already working on certain topics suddenly switched from innovative pilots to concrete market-oriented strategies,” Adrien Treccani of Metaco said of them. “It’s almost FOMO,” he added.