In brief
- UBS, the world’s largest wealth manager overseeing $4.7 trillion in assets, will allow select private banking clients to trade Bitcoin and Ethereum starting in Switzerland, per a report from Bloomberg.
- The rollout reflects demand from ultra-high net-worth clients and may expand to Asia-Pacific after the initial Swiss launch.
- Switzerland continues to position itself as a crypto-friendly jurisdiction in Europe, attracting U.S. firms seeking stable banking partners.
Swiss banking giant UBS Group AG will open up crypto investing to some of its private banking clients, people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg.
Moves by UBS tend to align with the interests and demand from some of the world’s wealthiest banking clients, because the bank is the world’s largest wealth manager. It oversaw roughly $4.7 trillion worth of assets as of September for high net-worth and ultra-high net-worth clients.
The core business focuses on private banking and advisory services for wealthy individuals and their families, rather than mass retail banking.
UBS’s clout grew significantly in 2023 when Swiss authorities forced the bank to merge with Credit Suisse after years of scandals had eroded confidence in the 167-year-old lender. In 2021, Credit Suisse experienced two big failures: A $5.5 billion loss after the Archegos Capital family office imploded, and a $10 billion loss when Greensill Capital supply-chain financing was frozen.
When the rushed deal was done, UBS saw its assets under management jump by roughly $1.5 trillion almost overnight.
The unnamed sources said the bank is still working on the final decision on how to roll out crypto access for clients. When it does roll out, the source said, crypto trading would be available to select clients in Switzerland to buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum. After that, it might then be rolled out to the Asia-Pacific region.
The bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Decrypt.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading for $90,132 after having fallen nearly 5% in the past week, according to crypto price aggregator CoinGecko. And Ethereum has dipped to $2,967 after having sunk 10% since last week.
Switzerland has become one of Europe’s more accommodating jurisdictions for crypto businesses. In November, the Swiss National Bank quietly increased its Bitcoin exposure.
And some U.S. firms saw Switzerland as a safe haven after two crypto-friendly U.S. banks were shut down in 2022—Silvergate Capital and Signature Bank. Swiss banks told Reuters at the time that there had been an uptick in inbound requests from U.S. companies looking abroad for banking partners.
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