Commonwealth Bank of Australia or CommBank will soon become the first to let its account holders trade in cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash & Litecoin via its CommBank app. As per the Commonwealth Bank's official website, CBA has partnered with Gemini, a crypto exchange to facilitate trading. The bank has also collaborated with a firm 'Chainalysis', which provides compliance and intelligence services for transactions over blockchains. Shiba Inu Reaches All-Time High; Becomes 7th Largest Cryptocurrency With Market Cap of $51.4 Billion.

Bank customers are said to have access to 10 digital assets. Commonwealth Bank will integrate Gemini's crypto exchange service into its app which will allow the bank customers to buy, sell and hold Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin, among others.

However, it is unclear if customers would be able to withdraw their digital currencies to their respective external wallets.

CBA CEO Matt Comyn said, "The emergence and growing demand for digital currencies from customers creates both challenges and opportunities for the financial services sector, which has seen a significant number of new players and business models innovating in this area. We believe we can play an important role in crypto to address what’s clearly a growing customer need and provide capability, security and confidence in a crypto trading platform.

In looking at ways that we can support our customers, we have made the strategic decision to form an exclusive partnership in Australia with Gemini, a global leader with strong security and a track-record of serving large institutions. CBA will leverage Gemini’s crypto exchange and custody service and integrate it into the CommBank app through APIs."

Dave Abner, Global Head of Business Development, Gemini said, “We are proud to be providing exchange and custody services to CBA as they begin to unlock access to cryptocurrency investments for many Australians. The exponential growth of digital assets internationally, coupled with Gemini’s institutional-grade security and proactive regulatory approach, positions this partnership to set a new standard for banks and financial platforms in Australia and across the globe.”

This service of Commonwealth Bank for trading in cryptocurrencies will start next week as an experiment, and new features will also be added to the banking app steadily by next year. After the trading in cryptocurrencies is enabled, over 6.5 million CBA bank customers would be able to buy, sell, invest and view their holdings inside the main CBA banking app.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 03, 2021 03:16 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).