A leading global asset manager with 954 billion dollars in their account for management, Northern Trust Corp, is planning to roll out a custody service for digital assets according to a report released by Bloomberg. In a conversation with popular financial publication Bloomberg, Pete Cherecwich, the asset firm’s head of corporate and institutional business revealed plans to begin developing a strategy that will secure assets that are custody held such as cryptocurrencies. He further stated that the asset management form had intentions of developing an exciting product that would be similar to that of currently existing custodial services but with lower fees.
This service will be a big boost to users since it will provide a great option to the high fees that are currently being charged by various custodial services. Northern Trust Corp which recently marked its 129th birthday currently offers accounting services to firms far and wide that invest a chunk of their holdings in crypto futures. The Chicago based outfit will however not launch a custody product for at least another year according to the firm’s head of corporate and institutional business. This won’t stop the Chicago based giant from further exploring the world of crypto. Recently, the asset manager unveiled a blockchain powered product in conjunction with Big four auditing firm PWC.
The new product was designed to provide audit firms with direct and quick access to a secure golden copy of confidential equity life cycles. This will be a great coup for the auditing industry since it will give the efficiency of the auditing process a big boost by making background transactions more clear and transparent to audit firms. This is only the latest of the firm’s interesting forays into the crypto world with more innovative and intriguing crypto and blockchain based projects set to follow soon. If their plans of putting up a crypto based custody business is to see the light of day, giant asset management firm, Northern Trust Corp will have to put their thinking caps on and tighten up their strategy.
This is because the asset manager is not the only financial giant eyeing the business. Giant crypto exchange, Coinbase, has also made major moves in this regard. The crypto exchange and crypto wallet provider recently announced the unveiling of their digital assets custodian solution for institutional investments. The custody product offered by Coinbase will be backed up by an SEC-compliant and FINRA- member independent broker dealer and electronic transaction clearing. Coinbase also has an impressive record of their own having stored up to 20 billion dollars’ worth of client crypto assets over a period of 6 years. This leads to little doubt that the product to be unveiled by Northern Trust will face stiff competition from the one by Coinbase.
