French bank BNP Paribas, the leading private bank in the Eurozone, will develop a custodial service offering for bitcoin and other digital assets through two new partnerships, according to a press release.
With over $506 billion of assets across the U.S., Asia and Europe, BNP Paribas Wealth Management leverages over 6,800 professionals across an international network making them the leading private bank under the Eurosystem – the monetary authority of the Eurozone encompassing 19 European Union members. Moreover, BNP Securities Services, the bank’s asset custodian service, holds over $13 trillion in assets under management.
The bank will partner with Metaco, a Swiss digital asset custody firm, in order to facilitate the needed infrastructure to integrate the custodial offering with its existing infrastructure. Also, BNP will partner with Fireblocks — a digital asset infrastructure provider — to offer a hot wallet, tokenization services, and the development a connectivity layer. The offering will also enable users to transfer, hold and issue related digital assets, such as tokenized bonds.
Metaco has previously announced partnerships with the likes of Citigroup, BBVA, Zodia Custody, DBS and Union Bank Philippines. More recently, French bank Societe Generale also partnered with Metaco. Previously, CEO of Metaco Adrien Treccani discussed the rise of banks entering the custody ecosystem of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in an interview.
“The series of banks that were already working on certain topics suddenly transformed from innovation pilots to concrete go-to market strategies,” Treccani said in an interview. “You will start seeing a series of announcements involving very big custodians. It’s almost FOMO [a fear of missing out] as these large banking players know that their future somehow depends on this capability.”
Edit: BNP released an official press release detailing partnerships with Metaco and Fireblocks. The article has been amended to include the release with updated information as confirmed by the bank.