US Bank State Street to Set Up a Digital Unit Focused on Cryptocurrencies

America’s second-oldest bank, State Street Corporation, will establish a digital unit to focus on cryptocurrency endeavors. This comes shortly after the banking organization with over $40 billion in Assets Under Management (AUM) said it will enable crypto trading through its platform.

State Street Sets Up a Digital Unit

The Finance Times reported State Street’s latest endeavor in relation to the cryptocurrency industry. According to the coverage, the giant bank has outlined plans to create a new digital division, which will allow the organization’s institutional clients to interact with crypto assets.

State Street Digital comes after the enhanced appetite from customers, whose demand towards digital assets has increased by 300% in the past few months, said the division’s person in charge – Nadine Chakar.

“We are at a tipping point now where this is moving fast. We are getting calls from endowments and foundations that are getting donations in crypto and saying, what do we do with this? We are seeing companies that are thinking of adding crypto to their balance sheets.” – she added.

The new initiative will be the result of a collaboration between the large bank and several academic organizations, and local regulators, she explained.

As the US is preparing to enhance its regulatory grip on the industry, Chakar said the bank will support “everything in crypto services that we are allowed to support from a regulatory perspective. The level of communications back and forth with our regulators is intense.”

It’s also worth pointing out that State Street recently provided its Currenex platform to be used by Puremarkets, a London-based crypto company, for digital asset trading.

US Banks and Crypto

After years of bashing the cryptocurrency industry, American banks have changed their tune in the past several months. Citing high customer demand, similarly to State Street, half a dozen US giants outlined plans to get involved in the digital asset space through various endeavors.

The oldest US bank, BNY Mellon, led the charge as it launched custody services earlier this year. Shortly after, the trend joined Morgan Stanley. The Wall Street behemoth enabled its institutional customers to receive BTC exposure through three funds and filed to purchase bitcoin for a dozen of its own funds.

Previous well-known bashers, such as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, also joined the bandwagon. Goldman even filed for a Bitcoin ETF, while JPM is reportedly looking to release an actively managed BTC fund, despite its CEO’s concerns.