BCG study puts custody at the center of banks' digital asset plans

What happened

A Boston Consulting Group study commissioned by Ripple places custody at the center of banks' digital asset strategies, arguing that the choice of custody model can determine which services a bank is able to offer. The research was announced in late October and covered by Bitcoin.com News and NewsBTC. It frames custody as infrastructure for payments, lending and tokenized assets rather than a back-office function.

BCG estimates that more than 30% of digital assets outside centralized exchanges are held through institutional custody models. The report's definition is broad: it includes enterprise self-custody and wallet-as-a-service arrangements as well as third-party custody, so the number is not a claim that institutions keep 30% of the entire crypto market with external custodians.

The consultancy's illustrative model puts potential improvement at up to $100 million for a regional bank with a $200 billion to $300 billion balance sheet. NewsBTC reported that the modeled range is $80 million to $100 million in profit-and-loss upside when custody choices are combined with five digital asset use cases. NewsBTC stressed that this is a modeled opportunity, not reported earnings or a forecast for every comparable bank.

Ripple described custody as enabling institutions to govern, move and use assets across their financial workflows rather than merely hold them. The study points to stablecoin issuance, payments, treasury management and lending or collateral as applications that depend on custody controls.

Why it matters

The practical implication is that custody is a product-design decision as well as a security decision. Holding assets for long periods involves different workflows from moving collateral between venues or settling a stream of payments. The same key-management technology may support both, but approval policies, limits and operational processes will differ. A secure signing system still has to establish who can instruct a payment, how limits apply and what happens when instructions conflict.

BCG also argues that banks may need a combination of custody models and that coordinating multiple custodians through a common orchestration layer is becoming a market standard. It expects consolidation to favor providers that combine financial functions, connect networks or offer modular infrastructure. Large banks are increasingly licensing self-custody technology, while retail and payments fintechs lean on outsourced wallet infrastructure, according to Ripple's account of the findings.

The sponsorship is part of the picture. Ripple sells custody infrastructure and commissioned the research, so the report can offer a useful framework while reflecting a commercial interest in expanding the market. NewsBTC noted that tension in its coverage.

What the data shows

The headline adoption figure is more than 30% of digital assets excluding centralized exchange holdings. Because BCG's category includes enterprise self-custody and wallet-as-a-service, the measure covers different degrees of control and outsourcing. It should not be read as a third-party custody market share statistic.

The earnings estimate is similarly bounded. For a regional bank with $200 billion to $300 billion in assets, BCG models $80 million to $100 million of profit-and-loss upside from combining custody choices with five digital asset use cases. The study also identifies demand for legal signing control, flexible deployment and cross-provider coordination. Security and cryptographic key management remain essential, but institutions are also weighing governance, approval policies, blockchain network connections and compatibility with existing financial systems.

Background

The research arrives against an established supervisory backdrop. In a July 2025 joint statement, US banking regulators reminded banks that crypto safekeeping must meet existing safety, soundness and legal requirements. The regulators said the statement created no new supervisory expectations.

Some banks are already building custody-linked services. Garanti BBVA Kripto, the Turkish bank's digital asset subsidiary, combines Ripple Custody with IBM technology to safeguard customer assets. Standard Chartered opened institutional custody for Ripple USD (RLUSD) on the XRP Ledger on Oct. 12 through its regulated Dubai International Financial Centre branch. The bank said it is working with Ripple and LMAX Group to make the stablecoin eligible as trading collateral.

What to watch

Standard Chartered's planned RLUSD collateral arrangement is one test case. Under the plan, eligible holdings would stay in the bank's custody while their value supports trading positions at LMAX. The bank said implementation depends on final documentation, successful testing, applicable laws and regulations, internal approvals and jurisdictional readiness.

More broadly, the market will watch whether banks adopt multi-custodian orchestration, how supervisors treat tokenized assets and collateral, and whether the modeled revenue materializes after operating costs and risks. Growing bot and artificial intelligence activity also raises the importance of transaction authorization controls, BCG found.

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