Financial services firm Fidelity Investments Inc. is set to offer bitcoin exchange services to institutional investors, according to a report published Monday.

Bloomberg, referencing a person familiar with the matter, said the service will be available in a few weeks and will be targeted only at institutional customers with no plans for a broader retail offering.

Fidelity first hopped on the cryptocurrency bandwagon when it launched a digital asset custody and trading service for institutional investors in October. That service offers storage for bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital assets and allows users to trade those assets through other marketplaces.

The new exchange service would allow those same institutional customers to trade their bitcoin holdings through Fidelity itself. Fidelity neither confirmed nor denied the report. A spokesperson said that “we currently have a select set of clients we’re supporting on our platform” and that the company would “continue to roll out our services over the coming weeks and months based on our clients’ needs, jurisdictions and other factors.”

The report follows a survey released by Fidelity last week that found that institutional interest in digital assets, including bitcoin, is rising.

The survey found that 47% of respondents appreciate that digital assets are an “innovative technology play.” Some 46% said that they find digital assets’ low correlation to other assets among the most appealing characteristic. Financial advisors (74%) and family offices (80%) view the characteristics of digital assets most favorably.

Should Fidelity be moving ahead with support for bitcoin trading, the new service will find increasing levels of competition from other financial services companies.

A report April 28 claimed that ETrade Financial Corp. was getting close to launching cryptocurrency trading. Robinhood Financial LLC announced cryptocurrency trading in 2018 and just in January obtained a New York State BitLicense.

TD Ameritrade Inc. invested in a digital assets exchange in November and was reported April 25 to have launched a dedicated crypto division, and in addition was close to offering bitcoin support on its platform. Rounding out the list, social trading and investment marketplace eToro launched support for cryptocurrency trading in the U.S. March 7.

Photo: Fidelity Jumper Classic/Wikimedia Commons