A landmark deal between enterprise payments giant NCR and digital asset company NYDIG will allow over 650 banks and credit unions within the United States to directly offer customers exposure to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
The new partnership will allow NCR-partner banks to directly sell Bitcoin to customers using an application developed by NCR. By doing so, banks can generate revenue from transaction fees and other investment offerings, while at the same time retaining their customers and cash flow that would usually go to cryptocurrency exchanges.
NCR (formerly known as National Cash Register) is a publicly-traded company that deals with digital banking applications and point-of-sale machines for retailers. The company’s payments business generated up to $6 billion in revenue last year, and will likely see a significant boost by tapping into the growing investor appetite for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
In an exclusive Forbes report with NCR’s president of banking, Douglas Brown noted that “dozens” of the company’s banking and retail partners wanted the capability of offering Bitcoin to customers without worrying about the lack of regulatory clarity on how banks should custody clients’ digital assets.
By partnering with NYDIG as a custodian, banks can offer Bitcoin to customers without having to store it themselves. Stone Ridge co-founder Yan Zhao added,
A lot of these banks have seen that one of the biggest outflows from their depositors moving money from the bank to exchanges like Coinbase. And so that’s part of why banks are so excited to have this capability for themselves and for their consumers.
Banks will only provide a customer-facing product, while NYDIG sources the underlying bitcoin from OTC desks and sells it to customers at a slightly higher price. The banks will also determine their fees on the trade, with NYDIG also pledging to hold in safe custody “every dollar of client bitcoin.”
NYDIG is a crypto-focused arm of $10 billion asset manager, Stone Ridge. The subsidiary already boasts $6 billion worth of digital assets under management and has been at the heart of recent moves to bring Bitcoin to the mainstream U.S financial system. Earlier this week, the company partnered with another payment giant, Fiserve, to enable bitcoin purchases directly from bank accounts.
