FIS Partners With Fireblocks To Bring Crypto Trading, DeFi, And Staking Services To Its Global Client Base

As the crypto industry continues to attract mainstream attention, institutions are looking for ways to get exposure to the emerging asset class. However, too often they run into friction when it comes to transacting, custodying assets, and getting onboarded at exchanges and prime brokers.

A new partnership is looking to change that.

Announced today, FIS, a publicly-traded $62 billion fintech company that offers everything from payments services to wealth management, has joined up with New York-based infrastructure company Fireblocks to provide its more than 6,000 capital markets clients access to a full suite of crypto trading and lending services.

“Globally, we are making it really easy for our client base to procure and take advantage of the Fireblocks platform,” says John Avery, FIS’s Global Product Head for Crypto and Digital Assets.

Starting today, all of FIS’ more than 6,000 capital markets clients will have access to Fireblocks’ offerings, starting with its 1,000+ partners onboarded to its network that allows quick, secure, and cheap transfers across the world 24/7/365.

However, what really excites Avery about this partnership is what Fireblocks can offer beyond trading. After all, sophisticated capital markets participants now see methods of earning passive income on holdings such as lending and staking as table stakes for the industry. “Fireblocks offers our advanced clients things like staking, lending, and decentralized finance.”

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From the Fireblocks point of view, this partnership is just the latest in a series of engagements that has allowed the firm to complement its product suite and market positioning. For instance, it is able to offer decentralized finance services to FIS clients because of recent agreements with companies and products such as Compound Treasury and AAVE Arc, which have taken different tacts to provide a safe-for-institutions version of this emerging vertical within crypto.

It will also help expand their geographic footprint. Adam Levine, Fireblocks’ Head of Corporate Strategy said in an interview with Forbes that “This is a global partnership. We’re looking to expand in existing markets and to enter into new markets with this capability like Latin America and South America where we’re first getting boots on the ground but FIS has existing relationships. We’ve also had some success in Australia and APEC region, but FIS should allow us to cover that even more.”

Finally, this latest announcement is just the latest entanglement for FIS in the crypto world. Earlier this month its payment processing unit WorldPay reached a partnership with Circle to allow merchants to accept USDC, the second-largest dollar-denominated stablecoin with a market capitalization of more than $50 billion. In May 2021, another FIS division partnered with NYDIG, which offers crypto custody and trading, to enable banks to offer crypto services to their clients.