Swiss private bank Julius Baer will offer digital assets to clients

Swiss private bank Julius Baer is announcing a partnership with SEBA Crypto AG to provide its clients with access to a range of new digital asset services.

Julius Baer, a Swiss private bank headquartered in Zurich, is one of the oldest and largest Swiss banking institutions. The bank, which provides financial services in more than 20 countries, is known for its banking secrecy and bank–client confidentiality.

SEBA, headquartered in Zug, wants to become one of the world’s first licensed and supervised universal crypto banks, and offer trading and military-grade secure storage of crypto assets.

Peter Gerlach, Head of Markets at Julius Baer and proposed member to the Board of Directors of SEBA, said:

“At Julius Baer, we are convinced that digital assets will become a legitimate sustainable asset class of an investor’s portfolio. The investment into SEBA as well as our strong partnership are proof of Julius Baer’s engagement in the area of digital assets and our dedication to make pioneering innovation available to the benefit of our clients.”

SEBA CEO Guido Buehler added:

“We are very proud to have Julius Baer as an investor. SEBA will enable easy and safe access to the crypto world in a fully regulated environment. The cooperation between SEBA and Julius Baer will undoubtedly create value for the mutual benefit and to the clients.”

In September, SEBA announced that it had raised CHF 100 million to build a regulated bank to bridge the gap between the crypto and traditional financial economies, with a roadmap focused on:

“Obtaining a banking and securities dealer license from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) and developing a new platform, leveraging state-of-the-art FinTech and best-in-class service partners to deliver military-grade secure traditional and crypto banking experiences.”

A new SEBA press release notes that Julius Baer has been a minority shareholder of SEBA since 2018. The partnership between Julius Baer and SEBA “will become effective upon the granting of the FINMA banking and securities dealer licence to SEBA.”

SEBA is seeking a license “to build a bank offering cryptocurrency services as well as extending traditional banking services to firms in the new industry,” Reuters reports, adding that the bank plans to launch its own cryptocurrency via an initial coin offering in the third quarter this year.

According to Reuters, a Julius Baer spokeswoman said that, until SEBA gets the FINMA license, the two companies are unable to specify which digital assets and services would be offered to Julius Baer’s clients. However, it seems plausible that the new offerings could include selected cryptocurrencies and/or linked financial products.

Another Swiss private bank, Falcon, made a similar move a few weeks ago by beginning to accept direct transfers of selected cryptocurrencies. A Falcon press release underlined that this new offering from Falcon makes blockchain assets fully bankable.

This trend, starting in crypto-friendly Switzerland, is likely to extend to other forward-looking jurisdictions, and then to the rest of the world, providing more mainstream credibility to crypto assets.

At the same time, it’s worth noting that all investors, anywhere, who want to own cryptocurrencies and other crypto assets, are already able to purchase them, directly and without intermediaries, from crypto exchanges.

Picture from James Cridland/Flickr.