Spanish banking group BBVA is rolling out digital asset custody tech from Ripple to support its new crypto services.
The move comes after the bank unveiled a new crypto-asset trading and custody service for bitcoin and ether in July.
BBVA will use the technology to deliver a scalable custody service for tokenised assets, including crypto-assets.
The deal builds on the bank’s existing partnership with the blockchain firm, which also provides custody technology to Garanti BBVA in Turkey and BBVA Switzerland.
“BBVA has long demonstrated strong leadership in digitisation and innovation and the launch of our digital assets offering in Spain follows earlier offerings in Switzerland and Turkey,” said Francisco Maroto, head of digital assets at BBVA.
He went on to say that the technology will enable the bank to meet the highest security and operational standards, allowing it to directly provide an end-to-end custody service to its customers.
“Through this agreement we can deliver on our goal of supporting our customers to explore digital assets, backed by the strength and security of a bank like BBVA,” continued Maroto.
BBVA received the green light to rollout crypto-asset trading and custody services from the Spanish Securities and Exchange Commission (CNMV) in March this year.
The new services mark significant step in the adoption of digital assets by traditional financial institutions, means that BBVA customers in Spain can now trade in bitcoin and ether through the BBVA app, which also includes the bank’s other financial services.
BBVA said the move underlines its commitment to offering its customers a seamless, fully digital experience as well as growing its digital assets business.
In August, the world’s largest crypto exchange platform Binance partnered with BBVA to offer customers the option to keep their crypto assets off the exchange.
Two sources familiar with the agreement confirmed to the Financial Times (FT) that the bank has recently started to act as one of the few independent custodians for the cryptocurrency exchange platform.
Under the terms of the agreement, BBVA will hold customer funds, specifically in US treasuries, outside of Binance’s platform.
