Banks aware of potential
Bobby Zagotta, CEO of Bitstamp USA — a cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2011 — told Cointelegraph that Bitstamp has received many inbound requests recently for their Bitstamp-as-a-Service offering, which allows fintechs and traditional financial institutions to give clients access to cryptocurrency.
To Zagotta’s point, BNY Mellon’s survey found that 65% of institutions are currently engaging with digital-native platforms rather than traditional financial players. However, BNY Mellon’s findings also indicate that 63% of surveyors would accept longer settlement times in order to transact with a highly rated traditional institution.Moreover, some industry experts believe that large banks can advance their operations by implementing crypto and DeFi solutions.
Echoing Butler, Seamus Donoghue, chief growth officer at METACO — a digital asset custody provider for major financial institutions — told Cointelegraph that he believes all financial assets will eventually be represented on distributed ledgers. As such, Donoghue mentioned that there is an imperative to redesign the financial market infrastructure.
However, traditional financial institutions remain concerned about regulations. Mathias Schütz, head of client and tech solutions at SEBA Bank — a Swiss-based digital asset bank — told Cointelegraph that traditional banks are hesitant to engage with digital assets due to regulatory uncertainty. Eric Berman, a regulatory expert at Thomson Reuters, told Cointelegraph that he doesn’t believe this event will hasten bank involvement in digital assets. “Banking institutions have taken it slow with crypto as it is. The FTX US and Binance situation probably underscores to the banking sector that it has done the right thing in taking a pragmatic approach.”