- The robo-advising investment firm Betterment stays away from crypto despite institutional players’ adoption.
- The firm says they are currently in “watch-and-learn mode.”
- Hundreds of US banks will offer crypto trading to customers.
Betterment, a leading American financial advisory company providing robo-advising and cash management services, is still studying crypto and investigating if it needs to add crypto to its services.
CEO and Chief Executive Officer Sarah Levy said during an interview at Bloomberg’s Wealth Summit that they want to be more confident before stepping into the speculative crypto space. She stated, “We’re believers that if we can provide the right kind of context and advice, that it’s OK to participate in some of these newer asset classes. I’d like us to find a way to responsibly offer crypto, but I can’t say that we’re there yet. I think we’re still in kind of a watch-and-learn mode.”
Established back in 2008, Betterment is a popular solution for investors in the US, providing tailored advising services for customers. The company added a whopping $10 billion to its assets under management in 2021, a record-breaking growth in the first quarter of the year.
At a time when more and more institutional players are embracing the booming crypto world, Betterment says it has not yet settled on a plan of action for introducing cryptocurrencies to its platform. The latest news about cryptocurrency adoption comes from US banks as hundreds of them plan to support bitcoin trading.
Bitcoin Is Coming To Hundreds Of US Banks
A recent report from CNBC reveals that NYDIG (New Digital Investment Group) has partnered with Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) to enable U.S. banks to let their clients buy, sell, and hold bitcoin within the coming months.
Patrick Sells, head of bank solutions at NYDIG, told that hundreds of banks have already entered the program, and they are in talks with some of the biggest U.S. banks.
According to Yan Zhao, president of NYDIG, banks are supporting bitcoin because they can see their customers sending money to Coinbase, Kraken, and other exchanges. “This is not just the banks thinking that their clients want bitcoin, they’re saying `We need to do this, because we see the data,” Zhao said
A couple of days ago, Mastercard published a survey revealing that 4 in 10 people intend to use crypto as a payment method within this year. In the research, Mastercard included that businesses need to adopt trending payment methods in order to meet their customers’ demands.
