South African financial institution Absa has change into the primary African lender to custody bitcoin, in line with 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. Plenty 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 most important asset the financial institution would custody, others would observe.
Absa didn’t instantly reply to questions from Bitcoin Journal.
The African continent has a big crypto-native base, with information corporations continuously highlighting the excessive adoption — notably in international locations 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 thrice the full of second-place South Africa.
On the worldwide index, South Africa ranked thirtieth for crypto adoption.
The character of its market is completely different from Nigeria‘s: it’s extra institutional, with regulatory readability leading to tons of of licenses being issued to VASPs and attracting skilled traders and conventional finance.
BNY Mellon in 2022 grew to become the primary main U.S. financial institution to supply digital asset custody companies. And this month, German multinational Deutsche Financial institution stated it will debut a bitcoin custody service for European company and institutional purchasers later in 2026.
