Global custodian banks, or traditional finance providers (TradFi), are feeling the pressure to meet the needs of their clients investing, or planning to invest, in digital assets and are ramping up their offerings to support these assets. Although they are entering the space a bit later than digital native custodians, TradFi is increasingly partnering with their crypto native counterparts to fill capability gaps in their services. The Celent research supports the banks’ efforts to offer digital asset servicing alongside their traditional portfolios: 72% of respondents to the buy-side survey stated that they would like an integrated provider for all of their digital asset needs.

This report examines the traditional custody landscape and how custodians are providing – or planning to provide – digital asset servicing to their institutional clients, what their capabilities are to meet existing and future demand for digital assets services, and which key fintechs they are partnering with to develop these capabilities.