Commonwealth Bank has said it is to become the first bank in Australia to offer its customers the ability to buy, sell and store cryptocurrencies through the CommBank app.
The bank has developed together with custodian Gemini and analytics company Chainalysis a crypto exchange and storage service.
The pilot launch of the new feature will take place in the coming weeks and will be gradually made available to a wide variety of customers next year.
Commonwealth Bank will support 10 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.
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The bank has previously conducted research that found many customers already trade and store cryptocurrencies on third-party platforms. Matt Comyn, CEO of Commonwealth Bank, said:
"The emergence and growing demand for digital currencies from customers creates both challenges and opportunities for the financial services sector, which has seen a significant number of new players and business models innovating in this area."