Swiss private bank BBVA Switzerland has expanded its partnership with software company Metaco to accelerate its digital asset offerings to institutional clients.
As part of the extended relationship, BBVA Switzerland migrated its digital asset operations to the latest version of Metaco’s institutional-grade digital asset custody and orchestration platform, Harmonize, in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model.
The bank, the first tier-1 bank in the Eurozone to provide custody and trading services for cryptocurrencies to individual clients in 2021, did so under a combined portfolio covering both traditional and digital assets in collaboration with Metaco.
This infrastructure will help BBVA develop its digital asset and private key custody capabilities, enabling the bank to support future business use cases in the digital assets realm. One such use case is the expansion into institutional digital asset services, which requires technology infrastructure that offers the maximum possible security and flexibility, said the bank.
This development follows Metaco’s recent partnership with HSBC, which announced plans to launch a new digital assets custody service for institutional clients using Metaco’s Harmonize. Additionally, DZ Bank went live in early November with its institutional digital asset custody offering in Germany, supported by Metaco Harmonize.
Alfonso Gomez, CEO of BBVA in Switzerland, said: “Our partnership with Metaco, which will fully integrate our existing infrastructure within Avaloq, allows us to offer the most secure and compliant infrastructure as the bank accelerates digital assets offerings for its institutional clients.”
Adrien Treccani, founder and CEO at Metaco, added: “Bringing the Metaco and BBVA Switzerland partnership to new heights would enable digital asset commercial offerings that fit the unique requirements of individuals and institutions.”
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