Wall Street Giant Citi Plans to Launch Bitcoin Custody Service for Institutional Clients

Citigroup is preparing to add Bitcoin custody to its services for institutional investors.  The new institutional infrastructure arm, Custody+, is a suite of tools designed to speed up custody, settlement, foreign exchange, and cash management for top clients. 

Bitcoin will be the first digital asset supported once the service goes live, though the bank has not set an exact launch date.

Citi reveals single framework for stocks and crypto

In the press release, the bank shared that Custody+ would let institutional clients keep their Bitcoin holdings in the same bank that manages traditional assets like stocks and bonds for them, instead of using a separate crypto custodian. 

Citi’s custody business currently serves clients in more than 100 markets, running its own custody network in 62 of them.

Amit Agarwal, who leads custody at Citi Investor Services, said the new platform is a testament to the years of work spent in building infrastructure fast enough to keep up with how clients trade and invest today. 

Chris Cox, Head of Investor Services, added that Custody+ was implemented to cut down on delays for institutional clients.

 “Citi’s Services business invests over US$2 billion annually in its platform strategy with a focus on speed, scale and availability,” Cox said. Custody+ is a clear example of this investment as we build infrastructure to eliminate latency and drag for institutional investor clients.”

Custody+ also features real-time settlement, liquidity management, foreign exchange, and AI market intelligence tools. 

The Bitcoin custody offering will run on the bank's shared digital asset architecture. This gives clients one system to access traditional and crypto holdings.

Custody+ builds on other modernization schemes 

The bank recently launched a new system in the U.S. that handles custody-related tasks in one step instead of passing them through multiple stages. More than 80% of these tasks are now completed in real time. The processing times were cut by as much as 92%, and 96% of events were wrapped up within two hours.

There are also plans to build out management and wallet infrastructure so that BTC can be tracked using the same control systems used for stocks and bonds. 

To add, the bank runs a token service that allows tokenized deposits to move almost instantly, around the clock, in certain markets.

Notably, Citi is not the first bank to enter crypto custody. BNY began offering the service to some U.S. clients in 2022. Firms like Fidelity Digital Assets and Coinbase also provide custody to institutions. 

Banks got the green light to offer these services after the SEC withdrew an accounting rule known as SAB 121 last year.  This is a policy that made it more expensive for banks to hold crypto on behalf of customers.