The media reported that the American financial conglomerate Citigroup is currently reviewing the concept of its partnership with the Swiss custodian of digital assets Metaco.
The media also has information that a US lender is negotiating with other companies that provide services for the storage and maintenance of virtual assets.
A representative of Citigroup, in response to a request from journalists about the revision of the program of interaction with the Swiss partner, did not provide any comments.
Last month, the corporate crypto company Ripple announced its agreement to acquire Metaco. Currently, there is no sufficient reason to say that Citigroup is reviewing the partnership with the custodian of digital assets precisely because of this circumstance.
The American financial conglomerate entered into a partnership with Metaco in June last year. Then, commenting on the new cooperation, Citigroup said that in this case, joint efforts will be aimed at developing and testing digital asset storage capabilities by combining the partner’s technologies and digital solutions with the banking giant’s network.
Metaco provides financial institutions with virtual asset storage technology. Last year, Citigroup stated that there were no intentions to integrate the partner’s fintech platform into its infrastructure.
Okan Pekin, global head of securities at Citigroup, said last year that there is a process of active digitization of traditional investment assets in the financial industry. He also said that the banking giant is introducing innovative solutions and developing new opportunities to support new-generation assets.
Currently, many financial institutions are implementing solutions for the provision of virtual asset storage services. For example, in October last year, the Bank of New York Mellon announced the launch of proposals for storing cryptocurrencies. Also, this lender attracts digital assets together with traditional forms of financial ownership worth trillions of dollars. The bank stores this resource for the largest financial managers in the USA.
Ripple buys Metaco for $250 million and claims that this decision will help it enter the institutional cryptocurrency storage market, which will grow to $10 trillion in the foreseeable future. The new owner of the Swiss custodian of digital assets said that both companies share a strong cryptographic DNA, top-level institutional clients, and a long history of working with regulated organizations to create secure enterprise-level solutions.
Ripple also notes that the acquisition of Metaco will allow it to expand its corporate offerings. The company’s clients will be provided with the technology of storage, issuing, and settlement with any type of tokenized assets.
Following the results of the transaction, Metaco will continue to operate as a separate brand, which will continue to be headed by its founder Adrien Treccani. At the same time, the firm will gain access to Ripple’s database of hundreds of customers and more capital and resources.
