Overview

• Citigroup is exploring providing custody for high-quality assets backing regulated stablecoins, marking its first explicit corporate planning in digital asset services.
• The bank is assessing custody for digital assets that support spot crypto ETFs, positioning itself against Coinbase, which currently serves over 80% of U.S. ETF issuers.
• Citi is developing stablecoin payment and conversion tools to enable token transfers between accounts and instant conversion into dollars for faster settlement.
• This effort remains in an exploratory stage, subject to strict anti-money laundering controls, asset provenance verification and enhanced cybersecurity protocols.
• Bank of America, Fiserv, State Street and other major institutions are pursuing similar stablecoin custody and crypto ETF services, intensifying competition.