Swiss Banking Giant Julius Baer to Offer Its Clients Crypto Asset Services

Swiss bank Julius Baer plans to provide its client access to digital asset services, following a partnership with crypto bank startup Seba Crypto, a press release from Julius Baer reveals on Feb. 26.

The partnership will come into effect when Seba is granted a securities dealer and banking license by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, the press release notes. The Swiss bank will then begin offering digital asset storage, transaction and investment solutions in partnership with the crypto startup.

The announcement also discloses that the banking giant has been a minority shareholder of Seba since last year.

According to a press release from Seba, the election of Peter Gerlach, Head Markets at Julius Baer bank, to Seba’s Board of Directors will be proposed to the company’s shareholders on March 20.

Gerlach was quoted in the announcement as saying:

“At Julius Baer, we are convinced that digital assets will become a legitimate sustainable asset class of an investor's portfolio.”

Seba Crypto, which aims to become a bank offering cryptocurrency-related services, raised 100 million Swiss francs (about $99.8 million at press time) for this purpose at the end of September last year.

In 2018, Julius Baer reported having 382.1 billion swiss francs (about $381.6 billion) in assets under management.

As Cointelegraph reported at the beginning of this month, Seba Crypto signed an agreement with Swiss mortgage bank Hypothekarbank Lenzburg AG to use its core banking system, Finstar.

Also in February, news broke that Switzerland's principal stock exchange, SIX Swiss Exchange, will test blockchain integration for its forthcoming parallel digital trading platform, SDX, in the second half of this year.