NYDIG set to bring Bitcoin adoption to 650 US banks and credit unions

NYDIG looks set to deliver on its promise to enable millions of Americans to buy Bitcoin from their bank accounts in 2021.

New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) has partnered with the Atlanta-based enterprise payment behemoth NCR to enable Bitcoin (BTC) services for banks and credit unions in the United States.

According to Forbes on Wednesday the deal will see 650 banks and credit unions in the U.S. able to provide Bitcoin trading services to their over 24 million customers.

Apart from Bitcoin trading for its banking and credit union clients, the NCR is also reportedly eyeing BTC payment services for its almost 200,000 retail clients.

NYDIG will reportedly offer its in-house Bitcoin custody solution, removing a major regulatory impediment for community banks and other financial institutions looking to deal in cryptocurrencies.

The news follows swiftly on the heels of NYDIG’s partnership with digital banking services provider Q2 as well as global payment channel Fiserv and cloud-based electronic banking outfit Alkami to enable banks to offer Bitcoin trading to an estimated 18 million customers.

Indeed, as previously reported by Cointelegraph, NYDIG bank solutions head Patrick Sells stated back in May 2021 that U.S. banks were keen to offer Bitcoin trading in 2021. At the time, Sells opined that the significant outflow of funds to exchanges like Coinbase was forcing lenders in the country to re-examine their previous anti-BTC stance.

According to NCR digital banking chief Douglas Brown, the company’s banking clients were routinely reporting massive outflows of customer’s savings to crypto exchanges. For Brown, offering BTC trading avenues will help NCR and its clients capture some of the $1.4 trillion market.

The move also expands the NCR’s improvement of the digital finance infrastructure available to its banking and credit union clients. Earlier in the year, the 137-year-old enterprise payment firm acquired software firm Terafina to improve customer onboarding across physical, call center and digital account opening channels.

NCR reportedly has plans to custody Bitcoin for its clients while also exploring use cases for non-crypto blockchain applications.