Crédit Agricole’s CACEIS Bank to offer crypto custody

CACEIS Bank is the asset servicing unit of Crédit Agricole and Santander.
The company is registered as a Digital Assets Service Provider by France’s Financial Markets Authority.
The approval allows CACEIS Bank to offer crypto custody services in a regulated environment.

One of the biggest crypto news today is that CACEIS Bank, the French banking entity of European banking giants Crédit Agricole and Santander, has been granted the first digital assets custody licence in France.

The asset servicing provider, with €4.6 trillion ($5.1 trillion) in assets under custody, secured the Digital Assets Service Provider (DASP) registration from the Financial Markets Authority (AMF), France’s markets regulator. Details on the AMF website shows that CACEIS received the PSAN nod on June 20.

According to a press release published on Thursday, the licence now means it can offer its digital asset custody services to the growing number of investment management firms and institutional investors. PSAN is CACEIS’ first milestone in the quest to provide innovative crypto custody products.

“In practical terms, we will provide secure storage for our clients’ private digital keys leveraging state-of-the-art technology,” Arnaud Misset, CACEIS’ Chief Digital Officer said.

👏We are proud of this important achievement! We are now the custodian in France to obtain the PSAN registration. The PSAN status enables CACEIS Bank to offer #DigitalAsset custody services to third parties. https://t.co/Ocw2mgKCHF#SecuritiesServices #AssetManagement pic.twitter.com/B2avgDxw4l

— CACEIS (@CACEIS) June 22, 2023

Major financial institutions embrace crypto

CACEIS Bank’s registration adds to the French regulators’ approval of crypto related services for finance giants, including Societe Generale’s Forge and AXA Investment Managers.

It comes as several global financial institutions embrace crypto, with US-based behemoth BlackRock sparking the influx with its spot Bitcoin ETF filing. The growing list now includes Fidelity Investments, Deutsche Bank, Vanguard, WisdomTree, Invesco, and Schwab.

The French giant’s regulatory milestone also comes amid a greater push for regulatory clarity, with the European Union’s MiCA currently the most comprehensive and expected to come into effect in 2024. The UK is in the final stages of passing its Financial Services and Markets Bill (FSMB), which was this week voted through by the UK parliament’s Upper chamber, the House of Lords.

In the US, the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) has recently intensified its crackdown with lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase. However, with focus on the industry, experts are optimistic clarity will soon follow.