Swiss Bank InCore Bank First to Offer Banking Services to Crypto Exchange Kraken Users
InCore Bank announced yesterday that it is the first financial institution in Switzerland to offer banking services to Kraken, which is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in Europe by euro-based volume. This move, according to an InCore press release, is inline with its strategy regarding digital assets and, with this integration, Kraken will be able to offer its clients another "simple and secure method to fund their account in four major currencies, CAD, CHF, EUR and GBP". InCore Bank and Kraken said that this partnership comes at a time when institutions and traders are seeking alternative sources of capital value amidst an "uncertain macroeconomic climate". Now, Kraken users are able to fund their accounts in euro and, starting in the third quarter of 2020, Canadian dollars, Swiss francs and pound sterling. Then, the users can trade their fiat against Kraken's listed cryptocurrencies.
"As digital assets, cryptocurrencies are a valuable addition to modern asset management and will be indispensible as a payment and investment value in the future," said Mark Dambacher, InCore's CEO in a statement.
"Private and institutional clients who want to diversity their portfolio in an intelligent and innovative way with Kraken can transfer fiat assets via InCore Bank to the crypto exchange," InCore's CEO said in InCore's press release. InCore's CEO also mentioned that, since the market sell-off earlier this year, Bitcoin has outperformed leading market indices in Europe. In addition, there are a number of exciting developments regarding other assets, such as Ethereum, that investors would like to include in their investment portfolios. CoinDesk reported that a strategy consultant for digital assets at InCore Bank said that InCore's new strategy is based on three pillars: cryptocurrency, tokenzation and blockchain applications.
InCore Bank launched its cryptocurrency strategy earlier this year and now offers bank services in the trading and custody of digital assets.
It does appear that InCore is going "all in" on crypto. In May of this year, InCore received authorization from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA to provide brokerage, custody and tokenzation services of digital assets. InCore has also set up a dedicated division called "digital services" to introduce these services via a number of partners. By teaming up with Kraken, the 10th largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume globally, and the deepest Bitcoin to euro liquidity in Europe, as reported by CoinDesk, InCore will certainly accelerate its efforts to dominate the crypto banking space in Switzerland and beyond. Kraken, headquartered in the U.S., reported last month that it has also extended its services to Australia by adding the Australian dollar to its platform.
"We are pleased to work with InCore Bank to further strengthen the links between the crypto industry and traditional financial institutions. They deeply understand the potential of digital assets, making them an ideal funding partner for our clients. We are constantly working to offer our clients additional options for funding their accounts." - Maximilian Marenbach, Head of Banking and Payments, EMEA, Kraken.
The above references an opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to serve as investment or legal advice.