# Self-Custody for a Company: The Problems It Creates > Removing counterparty risk introduces operational risk, and for an organisation the second is harder to manage than the first. - Source: https://custodywatch.com/self-custody-for-a-company/ - Published: 2026-10-03 - Author: Rhea Castellan - Publication: Custody Watch — Who is holding it, and on what terms - Topic: corporate wallet - Tags: corporate wallet, self-custody, controls --- Self-custody removes the venue from the risk picture. For a company it replaces one well-understood risk with several poorly-managed ones. ## The risk it removes Venue insolvency, freezes, and the possibility that your balance is an unsecured claim. These are real and they have cost customers a great deal. ## The risk it adds: the person Keys held by an individual create a dependency on that individual. Illness, departure, or a dispute all become custody incidents. Companies that would never let one person control a bank account routinely let one person control a wallet. ## The risk it adds: the process Payments from self-custody require someone to initiate, someone to approve, and a record. Building that is work, and doing it informally defeats the purpose. Most small companies implement the technology and not the process. ## The risk it adds: the mistake An irreversible transfer to a wrong address, made by an employee under time pressure. No custodian, no recourse. Transaction controls exist and must be configured. They rarely are. ## The risk it adds: the audit An auditor asks who controls the keys, how access is granted and revoked, and what prevents a single person moving funds. Answers like a hardware wallet in the safe do not survive the question. ## What a company needs if it self-custodies Multi-signature or policy-enforced hardware, with signers in different roles. A documented approval process. A tested recovery procedure. A handover plan for every signer. And an address allowlist. All five, maintained. That is an operational function, not a purchase. ## When it is the right answer Large balances held long term, with the staff to run it. Or a specific need that no custodian serves. For a company moving money weekly, it is usually the wrong tool. ## The middle position Working balances with a regulated venue, long-term holdings in a properly run self-custody arrangement, and the split documented. [A venue with segregated client accounts](https://collectnexchange.cy/business-solutions/corporate-crypto-wallet) covers the operational half without the counterparty exposure of holding everything there. [Collect & Exchange, which is licensed in Cyprus](https://collectnexchange.cy/), is a counterparty an auditor can look up, and [exchanges that publish where client assets are held](https://collectnexchange.cy/services/crypto-custody) make the documented split easy to describe. --- This article explains how something works. It is not financial advice. Canonical HTML version: https://custodywatch.com/self-custody-for-a-company/