According to Bloomberg, HSBC, one of the UK's largest banks, announced that it will work with Metaco, a technology company owned by Ripple Labs, on custody services that it expects to be implemented in 2024.
Accordingly, HSBC plans to offer custody services to corporate customers for digital assets such as tokenized securities, its latest move in the field of finance.
At this point, Swiss-based Ripple company Metaco will ensure that the assets of HSBC customers are kept safe.
The bank stated that with this partnership, the digital asset issuance platform known as HSBC Orion and HSBC's tokenized physical gold service, which was launched on November 1, 2023, have been completed.
HSBC plans to launch custody services for corporate customers in 2024.
In its statement, HSBC stated that custody services currently include “tokenized securities” and pointed out that custody services do not include cryptocurrencies or stablecoins.
“These services underline HSBC's commitment to the overall development of digital asset markets,” said John O'Neill, HSBC's head of global digital asset strategy.
As you may remember, Ripple purchased Metaco for $250 million in May this year. Ripple also announced that it estimates that the institutional crypto custody market alone could reach almost $10 trillion by 2030.