Bank of America expects to launch stablecoins as Morgan Stanley weighs use

By Nupur Anand

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Bank of America has been working on stablecoins like the rest of the industry and investors can expect the lender to move forward on this, CEO Brian Moynihan said on Wednesday, without giving a timeline.

"We feel both the industry and ourselves will have responses. We've done a lot of work," the CEO of the second-largest U.S. bank said.

"We are still trying to figure out how big or small it is, because in some places there are not big amounts of money movement. So you would expect us all to move, our company to move on that," Moynihan told analysts on a post-earnings conference call.

Stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value, are usually pegged to a fiat currency such as the U.S. dollar and are commonly used by crypto traders to move funds between tokens.

Moynihan said Bank of America was still trying to understand client demand, which was not high at this point, and would roll out a stablecoin at an appropriate time, likely in partnership with other players.

U.S. President Donald Trump has promised to be the "crypto president," popularizing its mainstream use in the country.

Meanwhile, Wall Street lender Morgan Stanley said that it was still weighing its options.

Chief Financial Officer Sharon Yeshaya said the bank was following stablecoin developments closely.

"As you would expect we are actively discussing it. We're looking both at the landscape, the uses and the potential uses for our own client base. But, it really is a little early to tell, especially for the businesses we run versus businesses that you might see from competitors, on how a stablecoin would play in," she added.

(Reporting by Nupur Anand in New York. Additional reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru. Editing by Mark Potter)

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