Today PNC Bank announced a partnership with Coinbase to provide a Crypto-as-a-Service (CaaS) platform, enabling clients and institutional investors to buy and sell digital assets. In addition, PNC will provide certain banking services to Coinbase. According to the Federal Reserve, the broader PNC group is the seventh largest banking entity in the United States, with more domestic assets than Goldman Sachs. Emma Loftus, who is head of PNC Treasury Management, told Bloomberg that it will initially offer the service to wealth and asset management clients, allowing them to trade crypto from their PNC accounts.
“This collaboration enables us to meet growing demand for secure and streamlined access to digital assets on PNC’s trusted platform,” William S. Demchak, PNC’s CEO and Chair, said in a statement. There’s quite a bit of latent demand within banks. All three Federal banking regulators – the Federal Reserve, FDIC, and OCC – recently withdrew advisories that warned banks against providing crypto services for clients. They also said they don’t need to get permission to support certain crypto activities.
The FDIC released numerous letters under a Coinbase freedom of information campaign that aimed to uncover the de-banking of the crypto sector. It also highlighted several banks that wanted to enter into partnerships such as this one to offer crypto services to their clients. They were strongly discouraged by the regulator. Currently, the biggest crypto-related focus for banks is stablecoins, with the passage of the GENIUS Act last week. PNC’s Demchak recently stated that PNC is likely to join a banking industry initiative. Bank of America, Citi and JP Morgan all discussed the topic in earnings calls during the past week.
