SEBA Bank AG took its start in November 2019 with a versatile banking license and a suite of services such as fiat storage, crypto custody, and a crypto-connected debit card that converts to fiat for shopping daily and crypto trading through the mobile app of the bank.
As said by Guido Bühler, CEO SEBA BANK AG, the bank accumulated an estimated $103.4 million from angel investors like Guy Schwarzenbach, who founded Black River Asset Management. Schwarzenbach added that the pricing for trades in the SEBA app, permitted by the process of API integrations with exchanges functioning globally, provided the most competitive pricing compared to over-the-counter trades. He further said:
“What I am really excited about for SEBA… is their upcoming deployment of a margin and lending business, including options and derivatives.”
SEBA bank was the first bitcoin-backing Swiss bank. However, Falcon, a private bank, in 2017 started offering bitcoin management services. Monetary Systems Lead of World Economic Forum, Matthew Blake called crypto-based and licensed banks as:
“A rising trend and something institutions can do to hedge.”
Similarly, a crypto startup of Switzerland, Bitcoin Suisse also registered for a versatile banking license to offer several services from staking to loans.
Marketing Lead of the startup said that Suisse was not applying for a banking license just to be like every other bank, we were pioneers at heart. He further said that they would, of course, offer cash accounts for their clients in their name. More importantly, they would be capable of start trading crypto securities, stablecoins, and synthetics like mini-futures and products to short the major crypto assets.
Among crypto-based banks so far, SEBA Bank provides a unique ability to acquire several kinds of fiat currencies which include US dollars, Hong Kong dollars, and Singapore dollars, and trade cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Stellar.
CEO SEBA Bank Bühler stated:
“You can open an account over the phone in 15 minutes, for an accredited investor, you don’t have to go to Switzerland. There’s always going to be aspects that banks are required for, and the first one is the storage of your private key.”
As per Bühler, excluding the United States, the young bank already offers services to individuals having high net worth and institutional investors from all over the world, and a few blockchain startups.
To Schwarzenbach, bitcoin banking makes sense for security profits. He would not desire the risk of someone to hurt him to get his bitcoin stash. He added that open source decentralized finance (Defi) platforms eventually and comparatively provide financial infrastructure to both the general and proverbial population.
