HSBC Holdings Plc (LON:HSBA) has announced plans to introduce a custody service for digital assets such as tokenized securities by 2024. The banking giant is collaborating with Metaco, a company owned by Ripple Labs, to create this service which will enhance HSBC’s digital assets issuance platform, HSBC Orion.

This announcement comes in the wake of HSBC’s development of a system for issuing tokenized gold using distributed ledger technology. The upcoming custody service aligns with similar initiatives by other major players in the financial industry, such as JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM)’s recent blockchain-based collateral settlement and Euroclear’s blockchain securities platform.

Despite significant investments in the sector, the large-scale benefits of blockchain technology remain largely unrealized. Nevertheless, these recent initiatives may serve as crucial testing grounds for the practical application of the technology.

The collaboration between HSBC and Metaco, a Ripple Labs-owned company, underscores the escalating interest in crypto custody services. Predictions suggest that this market could skyrocket to nearly $10 trillion by 2030.