The sister branch of one of the banking giants in the Middle East, Arab Bank Switzerland has entered into a partnership with the Swiss-based blockchain technology firm, Taurus, to offer its affluent clients, a platter of services on crypto assets. These services would include custody, brokerage of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). According to reports, the partnership would be using “Taurus Protect” as the storage platform.
It is another addition to the growing list of establishments who are joining forces with fintech firms to tap the crypto asset market.
Rani Jabban, an executive committee member, at the Arab Bank Switzerland, announced that,
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.
Arab Bank stated that said the partnership was a consequence of the increasing demand from “business leaders and family entrepreneurs” and “existing and younger clients who seek to include digital assets as one asset class in their diversified portfolios.”
The “Taurus Protect” storage platform is said to use the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2. It is a ‘level 3 certified’ hardware security module (HSM), considered to be “some of the most secure hardware in the world.”
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The Taurus Group Managing Partner, Lamine Brahimi, stated that:
Supporting innovative players like Arab Bank (Switzerland)… is a necessary step to ensure that the next generation of financial market infrastructure is based on blockchain.
Several other Swiss banks have also launched services for crypto assets, including Gazprombank Switzerland, UBS, Julius Baer, and the Falcon Group.
Taurus had already established another partnership with bank Vontobel for their “Digital Asset Vault,” Julius Baer announced a partnership with crypto bank SEBA; Gazprombank Switzerland paired up with the crypto-storage specialist, METACO and the fintech company, Avaloq; Falcon Private Bank joined hands with Bitcoin Suisse, and digital bank Swissquote is an active service provider too, while Maerki Baumann is on the lookout for fintech partners.
SEBA Crypto AG and Sygnum AG were among the first to receive full secure banking and securities dealer’s licenses from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).
Facebook also expressed its eagerness to venture into the European Nation for its crypto initiatives. It wants to establish the Libra Association in Geneva. The social media giant is currently awaiting a payment system’s license from the Swiss authorities.
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In the press release, Serge Robin, the CEO of Arab Bank (Switzerland), stated:
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.
The Swiss lawmakers and financial regulators have also expressed their enthusiasm about crypto investments, and their willingness to establish rules that would better incorporate crypto assets into their economy.
