A bank in Puerto Rico, namely FV Bank, has been given the green light by OCIF (Puerto Rico Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions) to provide a custody service for various cryptocurrencies and tokens.
Thanks to this authorization, users of the bank will be able to open a fiat account to buy crypto or directly a crypto account.Â
These cryptocurrencies are BTC, ETH, EOS and XRP. For each crypto, there will be a dedicated address so as not to mix everything on one account, especially the different tokens.
This is a digital bank, so users will be able to interface with it via mobile or PC through the relevant application.
Puerto Rico and banks entering the crypto world
This is just the umpteenth news about a financial institution that has opened to crypto custody, a request that surely meets an increasing demand as crypto assets are becoming ever more popular and recognized.
Let’s not forget that such a service could also allow the internal exchange of cryptocurrencies since the financial institution already has all the client’s documentation and therefore doesn’t have to repeat the KYC (Know Your Customer) and all the AML (Anti Money Laundering) procedures.
With such a service it is possible to reduce the misuse of crypto and narrow the field of action of criminals, since financial institutions could activate a blacklist to prevent the user from sending funds to someone or, in the opposite situation, freeze any assets that can be traced back to illegal activities.
As much as it could be interesting and positive for mass adoption of crypto also by those people who don’t have a deep knowledge of the subject, there is always the problem of having to rely on a centralized entity and therefore to lack the physical availability of one’s assets at any time.
Finally, let’s not forget that PayPal itself has opened to crypto and already several users can use them in their account as a form of payment.