Switzerland’s largest online bank has announced intentions to develop its own digital currency trading platform by the end of the first half of 2022.
Sales Manager at Swissquote, Jan De Schepper, disclosed that the online bank’s aspirations include setting up its own cryptocurrency trading platform, in a recent interview with finews.asia.
“We want to enable more trading in various cryptocurrencies on the platform,” he said.
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Other cryptocurrency aspirations include being “the leading Swiss provider of digital assets.” In order to do this, the broker intends to expand its cryptocurrency offering, in addition to stablecoins and staking services, which are now in great demand in the cryptocurrency market.
Swiss trading platforms on the rise
The launch of Swissquote’s cryptocurrency exchange is expected to result in a dramatic increase in the number of trading platforms for digital assets in Switzerland.
Notably, the Swiss Stock Exchange SIX just introduced SDX, a fully licensed digital exchange that is fully operational. Only a few days later, Berner Kantonalbank introduced SMEIX, a platform for the trading of tokenized small caps.
Also, regulators gave the go-ahead to cryptocurrency bank Sygnum to establish its new trading system back in September of 2020.
Sqissquote is expanding with demand
It’s worth mentioning that Swissquote has already increased its employees in response to the surge in demand for digital tokens and coins that began last spring, and the company plans to continue recruiting to drive additional development.
“Our compliance and customer service teams were almost overrun by the crypto rush,” stated De Schepper.
However, the recruiting frenzy has paid off in terms of cutting waiting times for customers who phone into the office. Although account opening may take up to a week in rare circumstances when extra clarification is required.
Finally, in the first half of 2021, net revenue from cryptocurrency investments surged by more than 1000%, reaching 63.2 million Swiss francs ($68.3 million). Swissquote also anticipates that its pre-tax earnings will have doubled by the end of 2021, but expects expenditures to climb as a result of significant infrastructure investments.
