Commonwealth Bank to Offer Crypto Services to Customers

Commonwealth Bank (CBA) today announced that it has partnered with Gemini, one of the world's largest regulated crypto exchanges and custodians, and leading blockchain analysis firm, Chainalysis, to offer customers the ability to buy, sell and hold crypto assets, directly through the CommBank app.

Both partnerships have allowed the bank to design a crypto exchange and custody service that will be offered to customers through a new feature in the app.

The pilot will start in the coming weeks and CBA intends to progressively roll out more features to more customers in 2022. CBA will provide customers with access to up to ten selected crypto assets including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin.

CBA CEO Matt Comyn said: "The emergence and growing demand for digital currencies from customers creates both challenges and opportunities for the financial services sector, which has seen a significant number of new players and business models innovating in this area. We believe we can play an important role in crypto to address what's clearly a growing customer need and provide capability, security and confidence in a crypto trading platform."

Michael Gronager, CEO and Co-Founder, Chainalysis, said: "Financial institutions like CBA play an integral role in growing cryptocurrency adoption safely. We are thrilled to be a part of this important alliance with CBA and our partner Gemini to play a pioneering role in building trust in cryptocurrencies in the Australian market."