South African financial institution Absa has turn out to be the primary African lender to custody bitcoin, based on studies.
As reported first by Bloomberg on Friday, the Johannesburg-based lender will serve institutional purchasers, principally by custodying bitcoin — however different digital property may also be part of the service.
Banks worldwide are integrating or providing bitcoin-related services and products. Quite a lot of U.S. and European banks have began providing crypto-related companies by custodying property for establishments.
Rob Downes, head of digital property at Absa’s company and funding banking unit, was quoted saying that whereas bitcoin was the largest asset the financial institution would custody, others would comply with.
Absa didn’t instantly reply to questions from Bitcoin Journal.
The African continent has a big crypto-native base, with information corporations often highlighting the excessive adoption — notably in nations the place currencies have been considerably debased.
In Chainalysis’s 2025 report, South Africa’s $36.0 billion in on-chain worth made it second in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria alone acquired $92.1 billion, almost 3 times the whole of second-place South Africa.
On the worldwide index, South Africa ranked thirtieth for crypto adoption.
The character of its market is totally different from Nigeria‘s: it’s extra institutional, with regulatory readability leading to a whole bunch of licenses being issued to VASPs and attracting skilled traders and conventional finance.
BNY Mellon in 2022 became the primary main U.S. financial institution to supply digital asset custody companies. And this month, German multinational Deutsche Financial institution said it could debut a bitcoin custody service for European company and institutional purchasers later in 2026.
