Banks are working quietly to prepare for a world that involves cryptocurrencies, while Bank of America recently secured a patent for a cryptocurrency aggregation system. With its new patent, it will allow large companies to store customers’ crypto deposits in an enterprise account involving vaults and offline storage rather than taking on the risk themselves.

“Deposit accounts at an enterprise, such as a financial institution, are used by customers of the financial institution to deposit funds for safekeeping,” the patent states.

Many of patents filed by banks have so far focused on blockchain technology, while this system is more of a competitive move in crypto. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved the new system on November 13.

Bank of America’s system is equipped with a memory to store customer and enterprise accounts, and a processor to manage cryptocurrency deposits amongst coins such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, [XRP], Peercoin, or Dogecoin. In addition, its system identifies public keys, matches keys with the relevant customer and determines the value of deposits. CCN notes that the processor also harnesses the public key of the business and aggregates the cryptocurrency in an enterprise account.

The patent application, filed in 2014, recognizes cryptocurrency transactions are on the rise, stating, “financial transactions involving cryptocurrency have become more common.”  Simultaneously, the number of merchants accepting crypto is growing, with companies such as Square also recently securing a patent for receiving crypto payments.

Bank of America says its system will be efficient as it is designed to bypass fees that are typically associated with converting cryptocurrencies. For example, in one of its multiple “embodiments” of the technology described in the patent, Bank of America advocates that its system “negates the need for customers of the enterprise to use a third-party currency exchange to execute a desired currency exchange.”