One Of The World’s Oldest Banks With Over $15 Billion In AUM To Offer Tezos To Its Clients

Tezos and Sygnum

In late 2020 it was announced that Sygnum Bank were the first regulated bank in the world to offer Tezos staking. It also offers purchase, custody, trading and credit for the Tezos blockchains native token, XTZ.

Sygnum describe themselves as

the worlds first digital asset bank created in the financial hubs of Switzerland and Singapore.

Bordier & Cie, Sygnum & Tezos

Bordier & Cie are one of the oldest banks in the world, established in 1844 in Switzerland. The bank manages around 14.2 billion CHF (which equates to around $15 billion) in assets which is actually quite small compared to some other Swiss heavyweights such as UBS with over $2.6 trillion in AUM.

It has now been announced that Bordier & Cie will offer Tezos, as well as selected other assets including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ethereum to its clients. Specifically these clients will be ‘Execution-Only Clients’. The FCA (Financial Conduct Authority defines an ‘Execution Only Transaction’ as:

‘…a transaction executed by a firm upon the specific instructions of a client where the firm does not give advice on investments relating to the merits of the transaction and in relation to which the rules on assessment of appropriateness…’

In a joint press release, it was stated:

Bordier & Cie SCmA, a leading Swiss private bank founded in 1844, has expanded its offering to include cryptocurrencies by incorporating Sygnum’s B2B banking platform.

This partnership enables Bordier’s clients* to invest today in the digital asset economy with complete trust, and lays the foundation for a broader offering of regulated digital asset products and services, including sophisticated trading strategies with options, and the ability to invest in previously hard-to-access asset classes via tokenization.

In the next section Tezos was mentioned specifically as an asset that would be offered:

Bordier clients* can now securely buy, hold and trade cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Tezos, and gain diversified exposure via Sygnum’s suite of digital asset management products

‐ Total market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies increased almost four-fold in 2020, making it the best-performing asset class and a powerful tool for portfolio diversification – thus also increasing client-demand

‐ In under 60 days, Bordier was able to fully integrate Sygnum’s B2B banking platform and offer seamless access to digital assets to their own clients*

It looks likely the scope for the offerings will increase as it was further stated:

At this stage, clients* of Bordier can now buy, hold, and trade cryptocurrencies on an execution only basis. They can trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Tezos, with the highest level of security and compliance provided by a Swiss regulated bank.

The offering will be extended as clients become more at ease with the simplicity of the new service.

This could be seen as another example of Tezos adoption flourishing in one of the largest financial centres in the world, this time by a regulated bank with a fully established history dating 100’s of years.