Citi plans to launch bitcoin custody for institutional clients later this year

Citigroup plans to begin offering bitcoin custody later this year, bringing crypto into the same infrastructure it uses to safeguard traditional assets for institutional investors.

On Tuesday, the bank’s institutional infrastructure arm announced the launch of Custody+, a suite of services designed to make custody, settlement, foreign exchange and cash management faster.

The service, which does not yet have a launch date, will start with bitcoin BTC$64,098.11 and give clients access to traditional and crypto custody through the same framework.

Citi’s custody operation serves clients in more than 100 markets, including 62 markets where it runs its own custody network. By adding bitcoin custody, those clients could keep their bitcoin with the same bank that holds their stocks and bonds, making it easier for some institutions to invest in bitcoin without using a separate crypto custodian.

“Custody+ is the product of a multi-year commitment to building infrastructure that matches the speed of our clients’ strategies,” Amit Agarwal, head of custody at Citi Investor Services, said in a statement.

The bitcoin custody plans are part of a wider effort by Citi to make its systems faster. The bank has rolled out new technology in the U.S. that processes many custody-related tasks through one system instead of passing them through several steps.

The bank said more than 80% of these events are now processed in real time and that its new system has cut processing times for these events by as much as 92%, with 96% now completed within two hours.

Citi is not the first large financial firm to move into bitcoin custody. BNY began offering crypto custody for some U.S. clients in 2022, while firms including Fidelity Digital Assets and Coinbase (COIN) already provide custody services to institutions. U.S. banks have also received more regulatory room to enter the business after the SEC withdrew SAB 121 in 2025, an accounting policy that had made it more costly for banks to safeguard crypto assets for customers.