The law passed by Congress in the US has opened up the potential of crypto payments, spurring Citigroup to explore custody and payment services for stablecoin.
Custody banks have the opportunity to secure and manage the assets, as the law requires stablecoin issuers to hold safe assets such as US Treasuries of cash to back the digital tokens.
Other big financial institutions are considering expanding their cryptocurrency offerings with the new law, including Fiserv and Bank of America.
Citi’s current offerings allow users to convert stablecoins into dollars for instant payments or send them between accounts, and tokenised US dollars that can be used over blockchain internationally.
Biswarup Chatterjee, global head of partnerships and innovation in Citigroup’s services wing, told Reuters that the bank is carrying out a major restructuring, and is considering launching crypto ETFs and experimenting with how stablecoin can drive payments innovation. The bank has announced interest in issuing stablecoin.
Research from Citi released earlier this year, found that stablecoins could grow to $3.7 trillion by 2030.