Brazils Largest Bank Itau Opens Encrypted Transactions to All Users Next Step Includes Stablecoins

Brazil’s largest bank, Itau Unibanco, has provided cryptocurrency trading services to all users. Through the bank’s internal investment platform Ion, users can purchase BTC and ETH, a feature that was previously only open to specific users.
While this service was launched in December last year, it was initially only available to certain consumers and has gradually expanded to more users.
Guto Antunes, the head of digital assets at Itau Unibanco, stated that the bank first needed to assess the acceptance of these assets on the Ion platform, and users have a high level of trust in Itau Unibanco’s cryptocurrency custody solution, resulting in high acceptance.
Itau Unibanco has developed its own custody solution, where each user has a digital wallet and assets are isolated in compliance with regulations. Although the development of custody covers the support of tokenization service provider Liqi, the execution of asset custody does not involve third parties. The entire custody solution, from concept to implementation, is completed internally at Itau Unibanco using a framework and trust responsibility.
Ion platform currently only offers BTC and ETH to users, but is considering adding new cryptocurrencies and is waiting for the Brazilian Central Bank’s regulations on stablecoins to include them on the Ion platform.
Although Itau Unibanco has not officially announced the number of Ion users, the number of downloads on smartphones has reached 3.5 million, including Android and IOS operating systems.
Guto Antunes, the head, emphasized:
“We are aligned with the Central Bank in formulating regulations, and we hope to grow in the right way.”