NYDIG Partners with FinTech Giant to Enable US Bank Customers to Buy, Hold, and Sell BTC through their Existing Accounts

NYDIG, a subsidiary of $10 billion New York-based asset manager Stone Ridge has partnered with fintech giant Fidelity National Information Services (FIS Global) to help bridge the gap in accessibility to Bitcoin, as the crypto asset “becomes more integrated with banking services.”

As part of this announcement that came on Wednesday, FIS said it would enable banks to offer their customers the ability to buy, sell, and hold BTC via their bank accounts without needing to create new accounts and with regulated entities.

NYDIG will be a trading and custody provider for the Bitcoin transactions while Fidelity National Information, which is a vendor to banks with almost 300 million checking accounts, will handle the link to lenders.

Late last year, FIS and NYDIG had partnered with Quontic Bank to enable the digital bank to be the US's first FDIC-insured financial institution that went live with a Bitcoin Rewards debit card.

In addition, the venture arm of FIS, FIS Ventures, made an undisclosed amount of investment in NYDIG.

“Unlocking these capabilities for financial institutions of all sizes levels the playing field for banking with bitcoin and can drive further innovation,” said Rob Lee, head of Global Core Banking and Channels, FIS.

According to Patrick Sells, head of bank solutions at NYDIG, hundreds of banks are already enrolled in the program, and they are also in discussions with some of the biggest US banks. For now, however, smaller institutions like Suncrest are participating.

“What we’re doing is making it simple for everyday Americans and corporations to be able to buy bitcoin through their existing bank relationships,” Sells said. The same mobile application that is used to do all the banking will allow customers to now buy, sell and hold bitcoin as well.

Banks had steered clear of Bitcoin for retail customers up until recently when BNY Mellon, JPMorgan, and Goldman Sachs announced their crypto plans. Now, other banks are also asking for bitcoin because they are seeing their customers sending funds to crypto exchanges, Yan Zhao, president of NYDIG, told CNBC.

“This is not just the banks thinking that their clients want bitcoin, they’re saying `We need to do this because we see the data'”

According to Zhao, most people can't invest in what institutional investors get to invest in, but by allowing them to buy bitcoin through their banks with as little as $1, it will be “huge for economic empowerment.”