Absa Group has become the first African bank to offer institutional digital asset custody, launching a regulated service in South Africa on September 21, 2026. The platform uses Ripple custody technology inside Absa’s own banking infrastructure and supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDC and the XRP Ledger from launch. Retail customers are excluded for now, with the service aimed at asset managers, non-bank financial institutions, corporations and treasury desks.
Rob Downes, head of digital assets at Absa Corporate and Investment Banking, said Bitcoin is currently the predominant asset in custody and that the bank is already discussing additions with customers. Absa says it relies on deterministic key derivation, generating private keys from a protected master seed only at the moment a transaction needs signing, removing single points of failure. The technology traces back to Ripple’s $250 million acquisition of Swiss custody provider Metaco in May 2023. Absa and Ripple announced their partnership on October 15, 2025, making the South African lender Ripple’s first major custody partner in Africa.
South Africa has regulated crypto as a financial product since October 2022, with the Financial Sector Conduct Authority licensing crypto asset service providers from June 2023. The South African Reserve Bank estimates crypto assets held at Luno, VALR and Ovex reached R25.3 billion, about $1.5 billion, at the end of 2024. Chainalysis puts on-chain value received in Sub-Saharan Africa at more than $205 billion between July 2024 and June 2025. Standard Bank has also moved into digital assets, holding reserves behind the rand-backed ZARU stablecoin and operating the Aroko settlement network.
Meanwhile, Bank of America holds a large blockchain patent portfolio spanning identity verification, smart contract modification, tokenized asset controls and AI-driven interbank settlement. EnvisionIP data cited by CNBC showed the bank had 82 blockchain patents in 2019, the most of any financial firm at the time. CEO Brian Moynihan has said the bank has hundreds of blockchain patents but faced regulatory constraints: “We’re not allowed to, frankly, because we’re regulated and they have said you can’t.” Since January 2026, Merrill and Private Bank advisers have been able to recommend spot bitcoin ETFs to eligible wealth clients with a 1% to 4% allocation.
The GENIUS Act, which became law in July 2025, created a licensing framework for bank-issued stablecoins. Bank of America is exploring dollar-pegged stablecoins and may pursue a joint stablecoin with JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup. The CLARITY Act failed a Senate vote 49-50 in September 2026, leaving broader digital asset classification unresolved. BofA’s patent portfolio could support compliance infrastructure for regulated digital-dollar payment systems.
