Switzerland Approves Gazprombank to Offer Bitcoin Trading and Custody

Gazprombank (Switzerland) Ltd. recently announced that it has been successful in getting authorization from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) to deliver digital asset services.

It is to be noted that the Zurich-based bank is exclusively owned by Russian Gazprombank. As per the bank’s website, the parent company is the 3rd biggest bank in Russia as well as the 3rd biggest in Central and Eastern Europe in terms of equity.

Notably, Gazprombank (Switzerland) is a fully licensed Swiss financial institution. It provides conventional banking products and services to its corporate and established clienteles.

With the latest consent from the authorities, the bank will start offering its customers the service of digital asset custody along with facilitating trading between virtual currencies and fiat currencies. The bank mentioned that primarily it will offer the aforementioned services to a restricted number of carefully chosen customers.

Specifying the benefits of the new digital asset offering, the announcement mentions,

“The clients get access to cryptocurrency liquidity, while the safekeeping of the cryptocurrencies is taken care of by a Swiss regulated bank. Additionally, the counterparty risk is limited.”

The bank assumes virtual assets to become more and more significant in the worldwide economy and, specifically, for their present and likely customers.