Today FIS announced a deal with crypto custody firm Fireblocks to enable its capital market clients to access cryptocurrency trading, lending and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.
Apart from custody and self custody wallet technology, Fireblocks provides a network that links trading venues and liquidity providers that it likens to the SWIFT of crypto. It also has its Fireblocks DeFi offering, which supports trading on decentralized crypto exchanges, as well as staking and yield farming.
“As digital currencies become more mainstream, capital markets firms will greatly benefit from a single destination that helps them manage many classes of digital assets,” said Nasser Khodri, Head of Capital Markets at FIS. “This exciting new agreement is a proof point of our commitment to invest in growing our digital asset capabilities for our global client base.”
This is the latest expansion in FIS’s cryptocurrency activities. Almost a year ago, it did a deal with crypto asset manager NYDIG to allow its banking partners to offer bitcoin investments to clients.
More recently, it set up a node on the Crypto.org blockchain, and its Worldpay division allows merchants to receive payouts in the USDC stablecoin. Plus, its been on the governing councils of two public permissioned DLTs for some time – Hedera Hashgraph and Korea’s Klaytn blockchain.
Meanwhile, Fireblocks first made the headlines when it landed a custody technology deal with BNY Mellon and has gone on to raise more than $1 billion in funding with a January valuation of $8 billion.
