Financial Post
TORONTO — Canadian branchless lender VersaBank is moving towards launching a blockchain-based vault to store digital properties, such as cryptocurrency, as “modern day bank robbers” hack into wallets and other places where these virtual valuables are kept.
The London, Ont.-based chartered bank said Monday its subsidiary VersaVault has signed two memorandums of understanding with a cryptocurrency exchange and a cryptocurrency-based fund, whose names it would not disclose.
David Taylor, VersaBank’s president and chief executive, said the agreements will facilitate feedback from two institutional holders of cryptocurrencies that will guide the development of VersaVault, which it intends to launch globally.
“We have two guinea pigs basically, two folks that have agreed to work with us, to make sure that as we develop the interface that its exactly what they want,” he said in an interview.
VersaBank says the blockchain-based vault works like a safety deposit box, where only the user has access or knows what is inside but its contents are protected from hackers and other risks.