Banking giant and financial institution BBVA is launching bitcoin trading and custody for clients in Switzerland but hopes to reach a larger audience soon.
Madrid-based financial services giant Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) is one of the largest financial institutions in the world, and it will soon provide bitcoin trading and custody services through its Swiss subsidiary.
“After testing a selected group of users for six months, BBVA Switzerland provides its first crypyo-asset negotiation and custody service to all its private banking customers,” the bank’s Swiss office said in an announcement.
The service will for now be available to Switzerland, and plans to start serving private banking customers on June 21.
The Bitcoin management system will be integrated into the BBV Swiss application, where performance can be viewed with other investments.
The announcement stated that BBVA Switzerland hopes to provide additional cryptocurrency exposure in the future.
It is not clear how customers send their BTC to wallets they control, or whether this is possible.
“Through the customer’s personalized digital wallet, Bitcoin can be automatically converted to Euro or any other current currency, and vice versa. There is no delay, nor does it affect the lack of liquidity of other digital wallets or independent brokers.
The announcement stated that no specific brokers facing alleged liquidity issues were named. “All of this is possible because BBVA uses multiple cryptocurrency conversion sources, which allows it to ensure 24 hours of investment, manage orders of any size, and process multiple orders at the same time.”
The BBVA quoted that the Swiss ecosystem with clear regulation and relatively widespread adoption of digital assets is the best place to test this new product. Although it hopes to expand its Bitcoin service in the nearest future.
Alfonso Gómez, CEO of BBVA Switzerland, stated in the announcement: “With this innovative offer, BBVA is positioned as a target institution using blockchain technology.” “In the next few months, we will continue to improve and expand our digital asset products.”