Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BNY Mellon) revealed to Bloomberg on Tuesday that it is preparing to offer custody services for bitcoin and ether held by clients of exchange-traded products (ETPs). This move follows a review by the Office of the Chief Accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which did not object to BNY’s determination that the cryptoassets shouldn’t be recognized as balance-sheet liabilities.

BNY clarified that this conclusion applies specifically to its ETP custody clients. The SEC’s Staff Accounting Bulletin 121 (SAB 121) generally mandates that banks account for custodied crypto on their balance sheets, but BNY argued that this rule significantly limits their ability to offer such services. BNY is looking to offer its crypto offerings and plans to seek additional regulatory approvals to enable large-scale custody services. The bank told the news outlet:

BNY has engaged, and will continue to engage, its banking regulators to offer custody services to crypto ETP clients at scale.

Bank of New York Mellon is one of the largest and oldest financial institutions. As of mid-2024, BNY Mellon oversees about $50 trillion in assets under custody and administration, making it one of the world’s largest custodian banks.

Currently, banks can charge up to 10 times more for the safekeeping of digital assets compared to traditional ones, making the business particularly lucrative. BNY is already involved in the ETP space, supporting a large portion of SEC-approved bitcoin and ether products. The upcoming launch of more crypto-related ETPs, including spot bitcoin ETFs, highlights growing opportunities for BNY in the digital asset sector, despite the challenges posed by regulations like SAB 121. An SEC spokesperson stated:

Certain broker dealers and custody banks have sufficiently demonstrated to SEC staff that their fact patterns are different from those described in SAB 121.

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