Am I the only one not excited by this?  People should be responsible for their own wallets, because not having to rely on third parties is one of the primary benefits of Bitcoin.  A small silver lining is that it at least gives us the chance to have that conversation with anyone who decides to take up this service from the banks and point out why maintaining control over your own funds is better. 

But I'm fully expecting the positive headlines about this will be short-lived.  These banks are almost certainly going to make the same mistakes so many exchanges have made, allowing a massive security breach and losing the funds.  That's just what naturally happens when a large group of customers need access to a single pool of centrally stored cryptocurrency.  The only way I could ever see it being secure is if they don't actually allow customers to withdraw cryptocurrency directly, which would make it almost useless.  The banks would then have full control over how, where and when you can spend those funds.  That would only bolster the argument about how you need to be in control of your own funds to see any tangible benefits.

We should categorically not be enthusiastic about commercial banks attempting to turn themselves into the gatekeepers of this system.  That's not how any of this is supposed to work.