CITI (C) plans to offer Crypto Careful Services in 2026, enabling the bank to hold native digital assets such as Bitcoin and Ether on behalf of clients, according to a report by CNBC.
The move marks another step through the Bank of Wall Street in the digital asset space. The Biswarup Chatterjee, the global leader of the Citi’s partnership and change for services, said that the care solution was in the development of two to three years.
“We have different types of exploration,” Chatterjee told CNBC. “We hope that in the next few quarters, we can be able to have a convincing solution that we can offer to our asset managers and other clients.”
The careful plan will give institutional clients a regulated way to store crypto, a piece of infrastructure viewed by many traditional investors as important for exposure to the sector.
Catterjee said Citi is pursuing a hybrid approach, developing some careful tools inside while also exploring outside of partnerships.
“We can have some solutions that are fully designed and built indoors … whereas we can use a third-party, lightweight, pointless solution for other types of properties,” he said. “We’re not currently ruling anything.”
The care offer will be joined by a growing portfolio of Digital Asset experiments in Citi. During the second-quarter bank income call in July, CEO Jane Fraser said Citi was also Exploration of a stablecoin issuanceAlthough he noted that tokenized deposits were an immediate focus.
Last week, Citi Ventures Invested in BVNKA Stablecoin Payment Startup, next to a visa. That deal followed the earlier trading financial experiments based on blockchain and cross-border payment.
If launched, the Citi’s careful service will place the bank in a small but growing group of traditional financial institutions entering the crypto back office.
