PNC to offer crypto services through Coinbase partnership

Bloomberg

PNC Bank intends to offer its customers crypto services through a partnership with cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase.

PNC customers will be able to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies with Coinbase's crypto-as-a-service offering through PNC directly, the Pittsburgh-based bank announced Wednesday.

"Partnering with Coinbase accelerates our ability to bring innovative, crypto financial solutions to our clients," said PNC chief executive officer William Demchak. "This collaboration enables us to meet growing demand for secure and streamlined access to digital assets on PNC's trusted platform."

Demchak also said in the announcement that the $559 billion-asset bank would provide "select banking services" to Coinbase. 

A PNC representative told American Banker that the two companies are in the early stages of the partnership, but PNC would likely provide treasury management services to Coinbase as a corporate client.

"PNC is a market leader in delivering best-in-class products for their clients," said Brett Tejpaul, head of Coinbase Institutional. "We're thrilled to support their entry into the digital asset market with our leading crypto-as-a-service platform, which provides PNC with a powerful set of tools to develop a scalable, high-growth business, built on a foundation of uncompromising security."

Coinbase did experience an internal cybersecurity breach earlier this year when an unidentified threat actor bribed some of the company's customer support agents. In response, Coinbase implemented extra customer safeguards and increased investment in insider-threat detection, automated response and simulating similar security threats, the company said at the time.

Coinbase is also making other forays into consumer banking and payments — later this summer, the company says it will roll out a co-branded American Express credit card that provides between 2% to 4% in bitcoin on every purchase based on the amount of cryptocurrency the customer holds.

PNC Bank released its second quarter earnings report last week, beating analyst predictions for earnings and increasing its outlook on loan growth for the year.