Financial Service Giant BNY Mellon Appoints New Head of Blockchain

New York-based global investments company, Bank of New York Mellon, has named Subhankar Sinha as the company's Head of Blockchain, according to a May 13 press release.

Sinha's role in the corporation will be to work on creating and furthering partnerships with startups, accelerators and other businesses in the blockchain field.

Sinha previously worked as a director for the London-based international accounting firm PwC, co-founding and co-leading the firm's American blockchain consulting practice.

He created a firm to advise startups on business models.

BNY Mellon put out a job offer for the role of "Blockchain Senior Principal" on online business networking platform LinkedIn four months ago, noting that they were seeking a "Subject matter expert for the Firm on blockchain/DLT technologies."

BNY Mellon - a bank with $34.5 trillion in assets under custody and/or administration, and $1.8 trillion in assets under management - has been testing blockchain technology since 2015, even releasing so-dubbed BK Coins as tokens for internal use as corporate incentives, according to the WSJ. Since then, BNY Mellon has used blockchain tech to keep backup records of transactions and co-founded a project to issue currencies on the blockchain.

More recently the company has partnered with the Intercontinental Exchange to provide private key storage for crypto assets.