PNC Financial Services Group Inc. formed a partnership with crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc. to offer its banking customers access to digital-currency services.

While still in its early stages, the tie-up will probably start by allowing wealth- and asset-management clients the ability to trade cryptocurrency using their PNC accounts, according to Emma Loftus, head of treasury management at the Pittsburgh-based bank.

“This partnership with Coinbase enables us to explore where we think the market holds the most promise, where there’s the most demand and frankly where our clients are really most interested in,” Loftus said in an interview, adding that the intention is to let customers buy and sell crypto without logging out of their accounts.

As part of the deal, PNC will also start providing select banking services to Coinbase, likely in treasury management.

Loftus said PNC is interested in use cases for commercial and corporate clients for payments and treasury-management functions, but that isn’t yet as developed for digital assets. The bank does see potential for settling payments in a form of digital assets in the future, according to Loftus.

“As crypto becomes more ubiquitous at the point-of-sale or negotiated into contracts to purchase goods, being able to support our clients to be able to settle in that currency — for a lack of a better word — will be important,” she said. “But that’s not tomorrow.”

Chief executive officers at the nation’s largest financial institutions, including JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon, Bank of America Corp.’s Brian Moynihan and Citigroup Inc.’s Jane Fraser, have described stablecoins as a potential threat to the banking industry’s grip on payments — and signaled they’re preparing to respond. And on Friday, President Donald Trump signed the first federal bill to regulate stablecoins, in a major win for the crypto industry.

While JPMorgan and Citigroup have hinted at plans to work with stablecoins, PNC expects one will eventually be led by an industry consortium, according to CEO William Demchak. PNC “would clearly be part of that,” Demchak said on an earnings conference call last week.

Loftus, formerly JPMorgan’s head of global payments, joined PNC in 2019. She’s been exploring crypto and blockchain as an alternative payment method for more than a decade, and believes the current regulatory climate will drive further adoption of digital assets, particularly in payments.

“Is it brand new? No. This has been evolving for a long time,” Loftus said. “But it makes sense for us to prioritize this now.”

–By Yizhu Wang and Emily Mason (Bloomberg)