Another Swiss bank now offering trading and custody of bitcoin and ether

Cryptocurrency • September 19, 2019, 5:05AM EDT
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Arab Bank Switzerland, a sister company of Middle East-based banking giant Arab Bank, is now offering trading and custody services of bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), the world's two largest cryptocurrencies.

The move means Arab Bank Switzerland’s high net-worth clients, including business leaders and family entrepreneurs, can now get access to digital assets, according to a press release shared with The Block on Thursday.

“We firmly believe that blockchain will disrupt the financial industry as we know it and we intend to be amongst the first banks to offer digital asset services to our clients in a secure and regulated environment,” said Arab Bank Switzerland CEO, Serge Robin.

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For the custody service, the bank has partnered with Taurus Group, which has integrated its cold storage solution called ‘TAURUS-PROTECT,’ with the bank’s infrastructure. Taurus said the solution uses the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2, level 3 certified hardware security modules (HSMs), “some of the most secure hardware in the world.”

“We have now a fully compliant and scalable infrastructure that we will use to provide institutional-grade digital assets services to our clients in complement to our traditional wealth management, asset management and credit solutions,” said Rani Jabban, a member of the executive committee at Arab Bank Switzerland.

Earlier this year, Julius Baer, one of the biggest banks in Switzerland, announced that it will offer digital asset services later this year, in an association local banking startup SEBA Crypto. Switzerland’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) recently issued banking and securities dealers’ licenses to SEBA Crypto and Sygnum.

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Yogita Khatri is a senior reporter at The Block, covering all things crypto. As one of the earliest team members, Yogita has played a pivotal role in breaking numerous stories, exclusives and scoops. With nearly 3,000 articles under her belt, Yogita holds the records as The Block's most-published and most-read author of all time. Prior to joining The Block, Yogita worked at crypto publication CoinDesk and The Economic Times, where she wrote on personal finance. To contact her, email: [email protected]. For her latest work, follow her on X @Yogita_Khatri5.