Boston Consulting Group (BCG) estimates digital-asset custody could add $80 million to $100 million in profit for a modeled regional bank, as lenders connect safekeeping with financial services.
Ripple said Oct. 21 that it commissioned BCG to study institutional custody’s expanding role in digital finance. The model assumes a bank with $200 billion to $300 billion in assets, but gives no timeframe for the projected gain, according to Ripple’s report page. It is a modeled opportunity, not a result reported by a named bank.
Once assets held on centralized exchanges are set aside, institutional custody accounts for more than 30% of digital assets, Ripple’s summary of the research says. The summary describes that share as rising but gives no growth rate.
Ripple says custody can support services including tokenization, stablecoin issuance, payments, treasury, lending and collateral management. These are presented as potential uses, rather than an existing arrangement at a named lender.
The summary says institutions may connect custody, settlement assets, payment rails, treasury and execution through a more integrated setup, reducing the need to build a separate connection for each function.
Ripple says fintechs serving retail customers and payments are adopting Wallet-as-a-Service, while large banks are licensing self-custody tools. It describes a shared control layer for coordinating multiple custody providers as moving toward common industry practice.
Ripple’s report page says security and key-signing protocols figure in two-thirds of custodian selections. The summary also lists governance, policy controls, network interoperability and connections to existing financial systems among institutions’ considerations.
