Citi Unveils Native Bitcoin Custody for Institutions

Citi is set to launch native Bitcoin custody for institutional clients before the end of this year. The $2.78 trillion bank has confirmed the move, placing it in a competitive field of large custodians building out digital asset infrastructure.

The bank's Custody+ suite covers eight capabilities across three buckets: speed and certainty, intelligence, and control. Bitcoin custody will sit inside the infrastructure bucket alongside a white-label platform that lets other institutions plug into Citi's back office.

Amit Agarwal, Head of Custody at Citi, said institutional investors no longer want to manage digital assets in isolation from their traditional book-of-record. Citi is pitching its advantage as the depth of its global securities services footprint across more than 100 markets, and the integration pitch of unified reporting across asset classes.

The launch coincides with the completion of the U.S. rollout of Citi's patented Single Event Processing (SEP) technology, which has reduced voluntary corporate action processing times in the U.S. by up to 92%.