Banking Giant Morgan Stanley Open to Offering Crypto Services in ‘Safe Way’: CEO

Morgan Stanley is the latest banking giant to show interest in the crypto industry after its CEO said in a Tuesday interview that it would work with regulators to deepen its involvement in the space. 

The bank’s CEO and Chairman Ted Pick said in a CNBC interview that there was a lot of liquidity in the space following Donald Trump’s meme coin launch last week. 

And he added that the bank would work with regulators to see how they could offer crypto safely. 

“For us, the equation is really around whether we, as a highly regulated financial institution, can act as transactors,” he said. “We’ll be working with the Treasury and the other regulators to figure out how we can offer that in a safe way.”

President Donald Trump pledged during his campaign to help the digital asset space after Democratic ex-President Joe Biden’s administration cracked down hard on the industry. 

Ahead of the new Republican commander in chief’s inauguration on Monday, the President controversially launched a meme token on Solana, which trades as TRUMP. The asset quickly shot up in value before dipping hard, and now has a market cap of $7.5 billion. 

Meme coins and tokens are digital assets based on celebrities, Internet jokes, memes, and culture. They are known to have little utility and are typically very volatile.

Morgan Stanley last year gave the green light to its financial advisors to promote the new Bitcoin ETFs to clients, and back in 2021 offered wealthy clients access to Bitcoin funds. 

Pick’s comments came soon after the Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said that he was open to using cryptocurrency for payments if regulators clarify the rules.

Edited by Andrew Hayward