NOVEMBER - 20228MY OPINIONINTRADITIONAL BANKS COULD BRING STABILITY TO CRYPTO. HERE'S HOW TECH CAN HELP THEM DO ITBy Karen McDermott, Global Head of Marketing and Communications, Financial Services Industry, SAP (SAP: ETR)W hile pundits were widely questioning the viability of cryptocurrency as turmoil shook the world of decentralized finance, Brad Scrivner, CEO of Vast Bank, N.A., was calmly and assuredly explaining why the family-owned, Oklahoma-based institution's effort to bring crypto into the retail banking mainstream was the right move at the right time."We want to put customers in control of their experience," Scrivner told me in a recent conversation. "Customers want their financial institution to be more like an Amazon. So we made a strategic decision to be a leader and give them what they want." By getting involved in a crypto market dominated by disruption-minded startups and the finance sector's anti-establishment, traditional OCC-chartered banks like Vast may actually help bring stability and maturity to an asset class that clearly is experiencing growing pains. Spurred by a 2020 interpretive letter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency clarifying that national banks can offer cryptocurrency-related custody services as part of their charter, provided they meet certain requirements designed to protect customers, Vast in August 2021 launched a platform that enables retail customers to buy, sell and hold digital assets right alongside their traditional accounts, in the process staking a claim as the first U.S. nationally chartered bank to do so. Meanwhile, led by the likes of JP Morgan and BlackRock, some of Wall Street's biggest-name asset managers are offering crypto as an alternative investment asset Karen McDermottKaren McDermott is Global Head of Marketing and Communications for the financial services industry at SAP, focusing on the innovations that are propelling financial services into the future, including digital payments, AI, ML, blockchain and metaverse technologies She began her 25+ year career with American Express in global advertising and has held leadership roles with JP Morgan Chase, Citi, BNY Mellon, and Xerox
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