Digital asset custody could generate up to $100 million in financial improvements for a regional bank with a $200 billion to $300 billion balance sheet, according to research from Boston Consulting Group commissioned by Ripple. The consultancy found that custody is increasingly functioning as core infrastructure for payments, lending, and tokenized assets rather than serving solely as a holding service.
Institutional custody models now account for more than 30% of digital assets when centralized exchange holdings are excluded, BCG found. Banks are increasingly seeking greater control over digital asset services, including signing authority over cryptographic keys, integration with existing financial systems, and flexible deployment options.
Growing Market Demand for Custody Infrastructure
Large banks are licensing self-custody technology to build customer products, while retail and payments fintechs increasingly rely on outsourced wallet infrastructure. The consultancy identifies growing demand for legal signing control and flexible deployment, with coordination of multiple custodians through a common orchestration layer becoming standard practice across the market.
Security and cryptographic key management remain essential considerations. Growing bot and artificial intelligence activity has increased the importance of transaction authorization controls for institutions managing digital assets.
Real-World Implementations
Turkish bank Garanti BBVA's digital asset subsidiary combines Ripple Custody with IBM technology to safeguard customer assets. Standard Chartered opened institutional Ripple USD (RLUSD) custody on the XRP Ledger in October and announced plans to work with Ripple and LMAX Group to enable the stablecoin as eligible trading collateral through its Dubai International Financial Centre branch.
BCG expects market consolidation to favor providers that combine financial functions, connect blockchain networks, or offer modular infrastructure that institutions can integrate into existing systems.
