Switzerland’s Julius Baer and SEBA Bank have been working together to offer digital assets services to the former’s customers in the country. After forming a partnership last year, this week Julius Baer announced that a range of digital asset services is now available to clients.
By collaborating with SEBA, Julius Baer is offering its clients access to a select group of cryptocurrencies, crypto storage, and transaction solutions. Customers also get a consolidated overview of their portfolio across both conventional and digital assets.
Julius Baer is the number 3 private bank in Switzerland, after UBS and Credit Suisse, and 7th worldwide as of 2019. It has $379 billion in assets under management.
The private bank and the crypto bank first announced a collaboration in early 2019. Back then, SEBA was still in its infancy, but it later received a FINMA banking and securities dealer license in August 2019. SEBA now offers services like crypto and digital asset custody, trading and liquidity, transaction banking, crypto asset and wealth management, and crypto corporate finance.
Zug-based SEBA was founded in April 2018. Shortly after, it raised $100 million to build a licensed bank and securities dealer. Julius Baer has a minority stake in the startup. Recent reports suggest SEBA is aiming to raise another $100 million soon.
Meanwhile, there is a flurry of digital asset activity in Switzerland. At roughly the same time as SEBA, another startup crypto bank Sygnum also received a FINMA license. The bank has a close association with Swisscom.
Last month, Swiss Stock Exchange owner SIX, along with Sygnum, announced an investment in SME share registry and tokenization firm daura, a unit of Swisscom. Until then, Swisscom was working with Deutsche Börse for digital assets. The investment by SIX, which launched a prototype of its SIX Digital Exchange (SDX), consolidated two separate efforts in the country.
