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The institutional bank has rebranded, hired much of Zodia Custody’s former leadership, and assembled an advisory board spanning traditional finance and crypto. Its digital-asset services will roll out as regulatory approvals come through.
FundBank Group, an institutional bank that handles cash and custody for some of the largest US asset managers, has rebranded as IRACE Digital and set out to become a single banking platform spanning traditional and digital assets. The relaunch comes with a Cayman Islands partnership, a wave of hires from Zodia Custody, and a seven-person advisory board drawn from both traditional finance and crypto.
The idea is to give institutions one regulated operating model instead of the patchwork of custodians, payment providers and execution venues most firms currently stitch together — covering fiat, stablecoins and digital assets on the same platform. The traditional side is live today, and the digital-asset side is being added as the company secures the approvals it needs.
What’s live today
The FundBank platform for asset managers “has been live and serving clients globally,” IRACE told BitBullNews, and the company is now layering digital-asset capabilities on top of it.
The existing business gives that expansion a solid foundation. Before the rebrand, FundBank served five of the top US asset managers and a long list of fund administrators and managers worldwide, and it already holds approval to support custody and execution of traditional assets. Rather than build from a blank sheet, IRACE is adding new features to that established platform, wired into the workflows fund administrators already use, with the goal of one system across all asset classes.
Expanding into digital assets
Digital-asset services require their own approvals, and IRACE is open about where that stands. Both launch releases note that the company has a number of regulatory applications pending. It is in active conversations with banking regulators in the US, Europe and the Cayman Islands, and expects approvals “in the coming months,” which it plans to announce as they land.
In concrete terms, IRACE is pursuing OCC, CASP and VASP authorisations to extend its existing custody-and-execution permissions to digital assets. In the meantime, a new partnership with Tenet Bank — a CIMA-licensed institution in the Cayman Islands that serves startups, web3 developers and digital-asset firms — brings crypto-native expertise to the group as it builds out its own capabilities.
An advisory board spanning both worlds
The advisory board, unveiled July 1, brings together seven members with deep experience across fund services and digital assets. Several come from the Waystone and DMS Governance lineage: Derek Delaney, former global CEO of Waystone; Don Seymour, who founded DMS Governance — which became Waystone on acquisition — and also founded IRACE; and Paul Cahill and Glen Magee, Waystone’s former global COO and CFO, who separately co-founded DataOp and ComOp. They are joined by veteran banking executive Fred Jacobs and John D’Agostino, Head of Strategy at Coinbase Institutional. Global CEO John Cronin also sits on the board.
The company describes it as an independent advisory board assembled to guide IRACE’s growth and its expansion into digital assets, pairing traditional-finance depth with digital-asset expertise.
Leadership and the Coinbase connection
D’Agostino’s presence points to one of the more interesting relationships in the mix. IRACE said he advises the company independently of his Coinbase role, as he does with other firms, and added that it sees room to work with Coinbase Institutional given the complementary services and overlapping client base — a natural fit as IRACE builds its digital-asset stack.
The executive team is drawn largely from Zodia Custody: Cronin as Global CEO, Jo Lee as Chief Product Officer, Niamh Byrne as Chief Commercial Officer, and Jennifer Fisher as Global Head of Custody and Trading, with Blain Sheridan joining as Global COO and CFO. IRACE says more appointments will follow in the coming weeks.
A crowded field, and IRACE’s angle
Unified banking across traditional and digital assets is a busy space, with Sygnum, AMINA (formerly SEBA), Anchorage, Zodia and Standard Chartered all pursuing institutional clients. IRACE’s case for standing out rests on two points: it is already a bank, with approvals for traditional custody and execution that most crypto-native rivals lack, and its workflows are already integrated with fund administrators and asset managers. Serving those firms specifically, it says, is where it can win.
Scale and what’s next
IRACE runs regulated entities in the US, Europe and the Cayman Islands, employs close to 100 people across three regions, and says the launch was driven by client demand rather than a fundraise — it has not raised outside capital. As a private company, it does not disclose its investors.
Over the next 12 to 24 months, the priority is straightforward: get the platform operationally ready and the regulatory approvals secured across its key regions, so it can deliver the integrated fiat-and-digital-asset banking its institutional clients are asking for. With a working business already in place and a leadership bench built for the expansion, IRACE is framing the rebrand as the start of that next phase.