Citi is building infrastructure it says will integrate Bitcoin into traditional finance, according to Nisha Surendran, who leads the bank’s digital asset custody development.
Surendran spoke this week at Strategy World, an event hosted by bitcoin treasury firm Strategy.
Infrastructure rollout
Surendran said Citi plans to start with custody and wallet capabilities, alongside institutional key management.
She said:
“Later this year, Citi will be launching our infrastructure that integrates Bitcoin into traditional finance. We’re going to start with core custody and safekeeping capabilities, institutional-grade key management, and wallet infrastructure.”
Citi has expanded from supporting more than 220 global payment networks into blockchain connectivity, moving from private to public chains as client demand rises.
Custody model and reporting
The proposed model would have Citi hold clients’ native crypto assets, using the bank’s regulatory framework and its existing custody business.
Biswarup Chatterjee, Citi’s global head of partnerships and innovation in its services business, told CNBC last October the bank had been developing the infrastructure for more than three years.
Surendran said the custody service would use the same risk controls and reporting frameworks applied to conventional securities.
She added that bitcoin positions would feed into existing tax workflows and reporting channels so institutions can view digital holdings alongside equities and bonds in a unified account structure.
Transaction rails and collateral
Citi plans to route bitcoin transactions through existing instruction channels, including Swift messaging and API connections, while abstracting away UTXO and address management.
Surendran also pointed to potential cross-margining between digital and conventional holdings, including the ability to pledge bitcoin as collateral within the same master custody account that holds government bonds or tokenized money market funds on Ethereum.
Beyond custody, Citi is exploring stablecoins and blockchain-based deposit tokens for cross-border payments and 24/7 money movement.
