Swiss Bank PostFinance to Roll Out Bitcoin, Ethereum Services for Clients

PostFinance, the financial services firm fully owned by the Swiss government, will offer its customers a range of regulated crypto services delivered through Sygnum's B2B banking platform.

Thanks to the partnership with digital assets bank Sygnum, its customers will now be able to buy, store, and sell cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), according to an announcement. PostFinance is Switzerland’s fifth-largest financial services firm boasting more than 2.5 million customers.

"This partnership illustrates how digital assets are now an integral part of the financial landscape in Switzerland. In this sense, the PostFinance and Sygnum partnership represents an important, and fully regulated step, towards increased asset class adoption," Sygnum's chief B2B officer Fritz Jost told Decrypt. "Switzerland as an investment ecosystem offers a number of strategic advantages, including regulatory clarity for cryptocurrencies and off-balance sheet segregation of crypto assets which eliminates credit risks."

A PostFinance spokesperson told Decrypt that its "analyses show that our customers want access to the crypto market. The past few months have shown that customers want more security, regulation, and trust. We can offer this. Our top priority is to offer trading and safekeeping within a secure framework for our customers and to ensure the highest level of regulatory compliance."

Sygnum's B2B banking solution lets existing financial institutions crypto products and services, with PostFinance joining more than a dozen of the platform’s other banking partners.

“Digital assets have become an integral part of the financial world, and our customers want access to this market at PostFinance, their trusted principal bank,” PostFinance's CIO Chief Investment Philipp Merkt said in a statement. “A reputable and established partner like Sygnum Bank with an excellent service offering is more important than ever.”

PostFinance did not respond immediately to Decrypt's request for comment.

Institutional-grade staking services

The new partnership also enables PostFinance to provide revenue-generating services such as crypto staking—a process of locking crypto assets for a set period of time to help secure a blockchain network in exchange for rewards on users’ holdings.

Sygnum’s staking offerings include Ethereum, the industry’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Cardano (ADA), Internet Computer (ICP), and Tezos (XTZ).

"Our continually expanding B2B offering, which currently includes 25 leading cryptocurrencies including DeFi-focused, 60+ trading pairs, and four leading fiat currencies, is available for deployment by PostFinance on a flexible basis. Additional details about the token and staking offering roadmap will be communicated by PostFinance in the lead-up to launch," Jost told Decrypt.

In June 2021, Sygnum also launched institutional-grade custody and trading services for the USDC stablecoin, as well as for a portfolio of decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens, such as Aave (AAVE), Aragon (ANT), Curve (CRV), Maker (MKR), Synthetix (SNX), Uniswap (UNI), and 1inch (1INCH).