Financial Institutions ready to invest in Crypto, awaiting Regulators and Authorities

By Ravindra Chagetha

The major financial institutions are excited to invest in the crypto market, the only thing that hinders their initiation is the confirmation from regulators and financial authorities. The light comes as stated by a financial journalist, Rebecca Harding, that significant financial institutions are excited and willing to invest in the crypto market.

Harding, who is also an author of “The Weaponization of Trade: the Great Unbalancing of policy and economics,” highlighted that a growing number of banks have started to invest and hold cryptocurrencies as they forecast the risk their business is prone to if they do not seek the ever-increasing needs and demands of the new generation customers.

According to her, “Banks are at risk of becoming nothing more than large fintech companies, people in the industry tell me.”

Harding is the CEO of Coriolis Technologies, a company that provides services to banks and corporation in the traditional finance sector. In her views, the vast majority of banks are having a questioning attitude healthily and are curious about crypto. The banks have realised the need to keep up with the developing pace of the cryptocurrency and blockchain space; banks are currently awaiting confirmation from the officials and regulators. Many major investment banks in the U.S. like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley have already equipped with a product range that will serve institutional investors in the cryptocurrency market.

Harding also stated, “A lot of banks are healthily sceptical about bitcoin and blockchain. They see the need to invest in it to keep up with technological developments, but they’re waiting to see where regulators fall and are working closely with financial technology (fintech) companies to make sure they’re not behind the curve. There is a lot of money being poured into [blockchain and cryptocurrencies].”

A similar pattern in this direction was seen in South Korea in July when a local media revealed that commercial banks in the country are holding more than $2 billion in Bitcoin and Ethreum. The central bank of the nation, Bank of Korea claimed that banks investments in cryptocurrencies are relatively scanty when compared to investment in other equity markets. The bank reported :

The Bank of Korea report r“The amount of crypto-asset investment is not big, compared with other equity markets, and local financial institutions’ exposure to possible risks of digital assets is insignificant. Against this backdrop, we expect crypto-assets to have a limited impact on the South Korean financial market.”

According to the experts, if the market leader like the U.S. officials formulates regulations to legitimise the cryptocurrency market, by enabling Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), other banks will obtain cryptocurrencies as a long-term investment as well.