Former Union Bank of Switzerland (USB) executives raised $102.438 Million (100 million Swiss francs) in funds to administer SEBA Crypto AG, a regulated cryptocurrency bank.
This investment reached from many international institutional and private investors that comprised of Black River Asset Management AG and Summer Capital. SEBA issued a press release on September 27th 2018 the website, that said by achieving this investment it plans to become a banking and securities dealer, licensed from Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).
Andreas Amschwand, chairman of SEBA and formerly UBS global head of Foreign Exchange and Money Market said:
“In Switzerland, we have a commitment from various authorities to establish a comprehensive regulatory environment for the development of blockchain technology and the sustainable, stable growth of crypto assets. I’m excited to be part of a team of experts helping to usher in the crypto economy.”
Amschwand also mentioned that Switzerland is an excellent place to start a new financial services model and the bank has assistance from regulatory authorities for building a concrete cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Cryptocurrency market is viewed as risky and lacking regulatory protection in terms of investment guidance, which is one of the reasons traditional financial market members exclude themselves from integrating with the cryptocurrency market. similarly, cryptocurrency institutions and investors are finding it hard to move assets from the cryptocurrency market into the traditional regulated banking industry.
For this reason, SEBA aims to bring collectively a Swiss-based team of global experts focused on getting the banking and securities dealer license from FINMA for developing a new platform.
This new platform is said to be formed by, “leveraging state-of-the-art FinTech and best-in-class service partners to deliver military-grade secure traditional and crypto banking experiences.”
This license would also allow SEBA to give a range of services, including :
Secure storage and custodial services
Trading and liquidity management
Crypto-corporate finance advisory
Crypto asset and investment management services
SEBA intends to bring in cryptocurrency and blockchain- products and services to the traditional market by producing a fully licensed and supervised banking solution for private individuals, institutional investors, and corporate investors.
Guy Schwarzenbach, CEO at BlackRiver Asset Management, investor and designated board member of SEBA said:
“The investment in SEBA is predicated on deep analysis of the velocity of the cryptographic asset market – if adoption, use, and utility continue to gain traction at the same rate; crypto will become a legitimate, sound asset class and therefore hold a requisite allocation in investors’ portfolios.”
Guido Buhler, CEO of SEBA said that a crucial aspect of producing funds is to increase the potential that blockchain holds in global economic reform and financial inclusion.
“With safety, transparency, and performance as core values, our ambition is to become a market leader in the convergence of traditional finance with the crypto economy,” Buhler said.
Some of the other financial institutions and digital currency exchanges that are operating to enhance the infrastructure of the global cryptocurrency market are Coinbase, Bakkt, BitGo, and major US-based banks like Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs that have lately showed their plans to work cryptocurrency custodian solutions — third-party providers of storage and security services for cryptocurrencies, services are mainly directed at institutional investors, such as hedge funds, who carry large amounts of bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.
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