In the first half of last year, a robust 61% share of surveyed financial institutions considered access to cryptocurrencies “very” or “extremely” important to their corporate customers. This made crypto access the most cited financial services after payment acceptance, according to a survey by payments data and news provider PYMNTS.
The survey, carried out by PYMNTS and sponsored by USD coin (USDC) issuer Circle, is based on answers sourced from some 250 multinational financial institutions with operations in foreign territories. These firms generate at least USD 10m in annual revenue each.
However, though the findings have been released this week, it’s important to note that the responses had been collected between April 7 and April 27, 2021, during a peak in bitcoin (BTC) price. The highest price in this time frame was USD 63,577, recorded on April 14, per CoinGecko. BTC hit a new and the latest all-time high of 69,044 this past November.
That said, the company’s report found that,
“More than 90 percent of banks believe their corporate and government customers would use cryptocurrency for both investing and transacting rather than one or the other.”
Additionally, those businesses that have operations spread out across a greater number of countries were more likely to use crypto for both investing and transacting, found PYMNTS. The survey shows that three-quarters of firms operating in at least six countries used at least one type of cryptocurrency.
The survey also indicated that financial institutions at the time of their response were confident in businesses’ willingness to use select cryptos for investments, transactions, or both. As much as 96.6% of financial institutions said that companies would use ethereum (ETH) for these purposes, and 96.2% said the same for stablecoins.
For bitcoin cash (BCH) and bitcoin, a positive answer was given by 95.9% and 93.2% of respondents who represent financial institutions, respectively, as shown by data from the report.
At the same time, the survey found that,
94% of financial institutions employed “dedicated staff to design future strategies around blockchain and crypto- currency technologies, compared to just 54% of corporates.”
Source: Cryptonews
