Switzerland’s biggest online bank Swissquote plans to launch its own trading platform for digital currencies early next year to meet the surging demand for crypto.
In an interview with Finews.asia publication, Swissquote chief sales and marketing officer Jan De Schepper stated that the company wants to become the top provider of cryptocurrencies in Switzerland. ‘We want to enable more trading in various cryptocurrencies on the platform’, he said.
Its list of cryptocurrency offerings includes staking services and stablecoins. As of the moment, the bank supports various digital assets, including:
- Bitcoin
- Ethereum
- Litecoin
- XRP
- Bitcoin Cash
- Chainlink
- Ethereum Classic
- EOS
- Stellar
- Tezos
- Augur
- Ox
- Cardano
- Uniswap
- Aave
- Cosmos
- Algorand
- Filecoin
- Maker
- Compound
- Year.finance
- Dogecoin
- Polkadot
- Solana.
However, this is not the first time Swissquote has taken a step to welcome digital assets to its services. Back in 2018, the online bank officially announced that its clients could engage in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) using LakeDiamond through its platform. This feature made them the first financial institution across the world to provide this service.
Last spring, Swissquote has already begun growing its workforce and continues hiring more employees to prepare for the expanding user base of the crypto industry. Welcoming more staff would reduce the waiting time for clients, according to Schepper.
‘Our compliance and customer service teams were almost overrun by the crypto rush. Now, we regularly manage to open a trading account on the same day. In exceptional cases when special clarification is needed, account opening can take up to a week’, Schepper emphasized.
From crypto investments alone, the online bank’s net income has skyrocketed from 1,000% to 63.2 million in the first quarter of 2021. By the end of the year, Swissquote is foreseeing a rise in its pre-tax revenues. However, since a huge chunk of investments is allocated to heavy infrastructure, its expenditures will also increase.
In addition, since Switzerland is a crypto-friendly country, other Swiss banks like Sgynum have also welcomed digital asset banking. In September 2020, it rolled out a new crypto trading platform that also serves as a crypto exchanging site.
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