It is well known that the French Financial giant, BNP Paribas has been doing its own research on bitcoin and blockchain project. There has been some rumors going around that its Belgian subsidiary, BNP Paribas Fortis is looking into the possibility of offering digital vault services for bitcoin users.
BNP Paribas Fortis has issued a statement, putting these rumors to rest. According to Coindesk’s report, the company’s spokesperson has informed that they do not have any plans to venture directly into bitcoin space by offering any such services to its customers. As quoted by the publication, the spokesperson has stated that they do not have any project regarding bitcoin, so it’s (rumors) not true.
According to reports, people who were subscribed to Bitcoin Brussels mailing list received an email from someone claiming to be a marketing analyst from BNP Paribas Fortis. The mail allegedly offered details about the bank’s plans to provide digital vault solutions to its customers. A link to Launchrock webpage was also said to be included in that mailer, urging users to enter their email address on the site. The mailer turned out to be part of the bank’s training exercise.
The spokesperson has cleared the confusion regarding the mailer received by Bitcoin Brussels subscribers. The mailer was part of bank’s training exercise on Lean Startup Methodology. They had selected bitcoin as a theme for the case study to gauge the interest among bitcoin community to store their bitcoins in a safe storage run by reputed banking institutions.
Even though BNP Paribas Fortis has declined that the institution is looking into bitcoin, the whole exercise gives an idea about the banks outlook towards bitcoin. By conducting a Lean Startup exercise, the bank is looking into the feasibility of including bitcoin based services into its list of offerings.
However, if BNP Paribas Fortis is planning anything along those lines, we will soon be hearing about it.
Image: Fortune