ING Bank Opens Up About Crypto Custody Solution at Singapore Fintech Event

Another big bank edging closer to a crypto custody offering, Netherlands-based ING, spoke publicly for the first time this week about about its preliminary trials with digital assets.

Speaking at the Singapore Fintech Festival, Tuesday, ING blockchain lead Herve Francois discussed the work done so far with Pyctor, a custody and post-trade infrastructure for cryptocurrencies that was included in this year’s cohort of the Financial Conduct Authority’s regulatory sandbox in the U.K.  

Pyctor, a collaborative effort between ING, ABN AMRO, BNP Paribas Securities Services, Citibank, Invesco, Societe Generale, State Street, UBS and others, is designed to make banks feel comfortable handling crypto. The project involves layers of security such as multi-party computation (MPC) and hardware module security (HSM) technology, and is also decentralized, according to Francois.

“The Pyctor Network of Financial Institutions increases security of the custodied digital assets and removes single points of failure. These principles were the core design choices when designing relevant pilots with our partners,” he said.

ING is also focused on cryptocurrency from an anti-money laundering (AML) perspective, as one of the founding members of the TRP (Travel Rule Protocol), which includes Standard Chartered and Fidelity Digital Assets.

Prior to joining the FCA sandbox in July 2020, Pyctor conducted a first pilot alongside firms such as DLA, Piper, R3 Tata Consultancy Services and Securosy. This involved two asset managers serviced by their respective custodian, who transferred a token on Ethereum‘s testnet, representing a digitally native bond issued by Societe…