Swissquote, Switzerland’s largest online bank, plans to launch its own crypto exchange before the end of the first half of 2022.
The crypto offering
The Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Swissquote, Jan De Schepper, said Swissquote plans to become “the leading Swiss provider of digital assets.”
“We want to enable more trading in various cryptocurrencies on the platform,” he added.
Swissquote users can trade 24 cryptocurrencies on their platform. These include Uniswap, Aave, Cosmos, Algorand, Filecoin, Maker, Compound, Yearn.Finance, Dogecoin, Polkadot, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, XRP, Bitcoin Cash, Chainlink, Ethereum Classic, EOS, Stellar, Tezos, Augur, Ox, Cardano, and Solana.
Crypto trading became available to private clients four years ago and has been Swissquote’s important generator of revenue. In the first half of 2021, the firm’s net income from cryptocurrency investments increased to 63.2 million Swiss francs.
The ambition to open a crypto exchange was driven by surging demand for coins and digital tokens. In addition, the decision was built also on Swissquote’s crypto success and its liquidity available for trading.
Switzerland, a crypto-friendly country
Switzerland is an ideal country for conducting a crypto-based business due to better transparency in policies. Swissquote’s European bank was a pioneer in the Eurozone to offer crypto trading to its clients.
Most European countries have favorable regulations for crypto, allowing crypto businesses to thrive. Due to this, Switzerland has experienced a sudden surge in trading platforms for digital assets.
- In September, Swiss digital asset bank, Sygnum launched an exchange for crypto assets after regulators gave it a green light.
- BBVA Switzerland recently became the first traditional bank in Europe to add Ethereum (ETH) to its crypto custody and trading service.
- SDX, a blockchain-based trading venue was fully licensed by the Swiss Stock Exchange, SIX.
In response to the demand, Swissquote has gone on a hiring spree which has significantly reduced the waiting time for clients calling in.
“Now, we regularly manage to open a trading account on the same day.” De Schepper says. “In exceptional cases when special clarification is needed, account opening can take up to a week,” he explains.
Swissquote foresees an opportunity to become the custodian bank to Swiss institutions eager to get into cryptocurrencies. Most institutions have avoided cryptocurrencies for a long time due to compliance reasons.
In recent times, reports indicate cryptocurrency adoption is on the rise, with more than 300 million cryptocurrency users across the world.
