Ripple said Oct. 21 that Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found institutional custody accounts for more than 30% of digital assets held outside centralized exchanges, a sign of custody's growing role in financial services.
Ripple's summary says the share continues to rise but gives no growth rate. It describes custody as a way for institutions to connect digital assets with payment and treasury services.
BCG says institutions assess providers by their governance safeguards, cross-network reach and fit with existing financial infrastructure. Ripple says increased bot and AI activity is raising the need for stronger approval checks.
Among fintechs serving consumers and payment businesses, Wallet-as-a-Service is gaining traction; large banks are licensing systems that support their own self-custody of digital assets. BCG also points to a common coordination layer through which institutions can work with multiple custody firms, an approach it says is becoming more common.
Ripple identifies treasury operations, collateral management, tokenization, lending, payments and stablecoin issuance as potential applications. BCG estimates that a regional bank with $200 billion to $300 billion in assets could unlock $80 million to $100 million in profit by pairing custody with digital-asset use cases. The figure is modeled, not reported bank earnings. EconoTimes previously covered the BCG bank-profit model.
