Two banks in Zurich have started offering cryptocurrency trading and custody services after gaining approval from the country’s financial regulator.

Maerki Baumann and InCore Bank Now Offering Crypto Services

Switzerland’s financial regulator, FINMA, has given the green light to two banks based in Zurich to start providing cryptocurrency services to its customers. Maerki Baumann & Co. announced, after the approval from FINMA, that its trading platform is now available for trading major cryptocurrencies. InCore Bank meanwhile announced that it has started offering various cryptocurrency services, including custody solutions to its customers.

The Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) gave regulatory approval to the two banks last week, with each of them operating independently. Maerki Baumann bank, based in Zurich, already has a dedicated cryptocurrency trading desk, and the license obtained from FINMA will now allow it to offer the trading and custody of cryptos and other digital assets like tokens. The bank will start providing such services to its customers this month, with the platform expected to support ERC20 tokens.

According to Maerki Baumann, the platform will start by supporting the trading of principal cryptocurrencies, which include Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), and Ripple (XRP).

Maerki Baumann has provided services to cryptocurrency companies in the past. The bank is known for providing business bank accounts for crypto and blockchain companies, while also supervising ICOs and security token offerings (STOs) for its customers. In the fiscal year ended December 2019, Maerki Baumann had around 8.5 billion Swiss francs ($8.84 billion) in assets under management, with 10% of the funds from Germany and 80% of them from Switzerland.

The announcement by the bank on Friday highlighted its short-term plans to expand its services in the cryptocurrency space and to allow people to trade a more extensive range of digital currencies in the second half of the year. The bank stated that it does not doubt that digital assets will, in the near future, become a fixed element of a professional investment advisory and asset under management services.

InCore Bank Introduces Crypto Services

The second bank to receive its license is InCore Bank, which has gone on to launch a wide range of cryptocurrency services. The Zurich-based bank is a transaction bank known for offering outsourcing services to financial institutions. Some of their services include settlement, custody, payments, compliance, tax support, and accounting.

According to InCore Bank, FINMA had granted them a license to trade, transfer, hold, and generate digital assets. Explaining further, InCore Bank stated that the license makes them the first Swiss business-to-business bank to provide financial institutions across the globe with easy and secure access to a forward-looking asset class.

The bank recently created its Digital Services branch, tasked with offering various services in the crypto space, including issuance, distribution, brokerage, and storage. InCore Bank assured its customers that there would be full segregation of crypto client assets in individual wallets to ensure the safety of customer funds.

InCore Bank is also working with numerous cryptocurrency companies like the Crypto Finance AG. The CEO of Crypto Finance, Jan Brzezek, is convinced that it is only a matter of time before BTC becomes a part of InCore Bank’s standard product portfolio. The bank revealed that it is already working on expanding the brokerage, custody, and transfer services to cover security tokens. Its partnership with Inacta AG is to help it develop extra services in the sector of the tokenization of assets.