Swiss Finma licenses two crypto banks

The Crypto Nation Switzerland gets its first official crypto banks. The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA issues its licenses with the bank and securities dealer license. What at the end looked a little like a competition among several contenders was FINMA's elegant solution, because it issues the license directly to two candidates. One of the lucky crypto banks is Sygnum and Seba Crypto. These two institutions are now officially the first crypto banks for digital assets with an independently controlled, scalable and future-proof banking solution in Switzerland. A milestone in cryptocurrency banking and digital assets for institutional and professional client services.

FINMA itself writes:

The commencement of business activity is, as usual, linked to various conditions and requirements designed to ensure an orderly business development. In the supervision of the two institutions, FINMA also applies the principles set out in the supervisory report published today.

In principle, FINMA recognizes the innovative potential of new technologies for the financial markets, but they are unlikely to circumvent the well-established regulatory framework. This seems logical and also very sensible, because regulation also helps to sort out the black sheep that can discredit an entire industry. For this reason, FINMA again makes direct reference to the well-known allegations concerning money laundering and terrorist financing. Here, the existing rules must apply and apply, precisely because anonymity entails increased risks. Switzerland has therefore previously treated tokens as assets and applied the Money Laundering Act to Blockchain service providers. For example, service providers have to identify their customers, identify the beneficial owners, monitor business relationships in a risk-oriented manner and, if there is a reasonable suspicion of money laundering, reimburse a suspicious transaction report to the Money Laundering Reporting Office (MROS).

FINMA supervisory report on payment transactions on the Blockchain ( German pdf )

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