banks, many of the lenders that have agreed to participate are smaller institutions like Suncrest, a California-based community bank with seven branches.
Until now, bitcoin adopters have relied on apps from a new generation of fintech players like free trading brokerage Robinhood, payments giants PayPal and Square, or crypto-centric firms like Coinbase.
In March, Morgan Stanley was first among banks to offer bitcoin funds to its clients, CNBC reported last month.
“Most people can’t invest in things that institutional investors get to invest in,” Zhao said.
While Fidelity National Information, which is a vendor to banks with nearly 300 million checking accounts, will handle the link to lenders, NYDIG will take care of bitcoin custody and trade execution.
Fidelity National Information, based in Jacksonville, Florida, caters to banks, providing access to services like chatbots or Apple Pay.
Banks will determine how much to charge their customers for bitcoin trades and will retain most of that fee revenue, according to Sells.
More people would own bitcoin if they could do so through their existing banks, according to a survey commissioned by NYDIG.