Citigroup (C) plans to launch institutional custody of bitcoin later this year, as part of a broader initiative to integrate digital assets into the bank’s traditional financial infrastructure.
Nisha Surendran, who leads development of Citi’s digital asset custody products, described the initiative in a speech at the Global Strategy Forum on Thursday as an effort to “make bitcoin bankable.”
It starts with institutional-grade key management and wallet infrastructure. But, Surendran said, the ambition is broader: to integrate bitcoin into the same custody, reporting and control frameworks that clients already use for traditional assets.
“We will offer our clients a single service model spanning crypto, securities and money,” said Surendran, who announced the plans at the World Strategy 2026 forum. Bitcoin positions, she said, will flow through the same reporting channels and tax workflows as stocks and bonds.
Customers will be able to transact via SWIFT, APIs or user interfaces, she added. “From the client’s point of view, all they need to worry about is that they educate us. We handle all the complexity of clearing and settlement and then we report back.”
Customer request
One of the reasons Citi is moving toward bankable Bitcoin is customer demand.
Citi has surveyed its customers, Surendran said, adding that they “don’t want to manipulate unique wallets, keys and addresses.” Instead, they want exposure to Bitcoin within familiar banking systems. Citi also wants to enable its clients to cross-margin across crypto and traditional assets, Surendran said.
She described a future account structure in which multiple asset types would be placed under a single master custodial or custodial account, including U.S. Treasuries, foreign bonds, tokenized money market funds, and bitcoin.
“Having all of these assets accessible within the same account structure makes it easier to use them for cross-margining,” she said, including the ability to use crypto assets on traditional exchanges or brokers, and vice versa. Citi intends to build infrastructure to support that, she said.
It is no surprise that banking giants are moving further into the digital asset space. Institutional investors have been seeking exposure to the sector from traditional financial institutions for several years. What started with BlackRock offering exchange-traded funds to help more investors gain exposure has now expanded to many banks and financial institutions, which continue to integrate their traditional financial services into the digital asset sector.
For example, Morgan Stanley, which oversees approximately $8 trillion in assets, recently filed for Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana exchange-traded products and is exploring wallet technology on its wealth management platform. It also deploys spot crypto trading on the E*TRADE platform and evaluates lending and yield opportunities related to digital assets.
“We have to build this in-house. We can’t just rent the technology,” Amy Golenberg, recently named head of digital assets at the banking giant, said at the Strategy World event in a presentation ahead of Surendran.
Building for a 24/7 Marketplace
Citi, which connects to more than 220 payment and settlement networks worldwide, also started with private permissioned blockchains before expanding to public networks as regulations became clearer and customer demand increased. Something similar to what another banking giant, JPMorgan, did with its JPM Coin.
One real-world use case is Citi Token Services for Cash, a 24/7 blockchain-based network used to move money within Citi’s global system. “As we move into the world of 24/7 assets like Bitcoin, we absolutely need 24/7 U.S. dollars or digital currency,” she said, adding that Citi’s internal systems are being adapted for 24/7 support.
The 24/7 market is also something institutional clients are demanding from traditional financial institutions. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced last month that it plans to introduce a 24-hour, blockchain-based trading venue for tokenized stocks and exchange-traded funds later this year.
The NYSE’s main competitor in the United States, Nasdaq, revealed in December that it planned to facilitate trading of stocks and exchange-traded products (ETPs) virtually around the clock, in an effort to respond to the increasingly global nature of financial markets and investor needs.
