Japanese financial giant SBI Group and Switzerland’s principal stock exchange, SIX Swiss Exchange, will team up for a new cryptocurrency-related platform to establish institutional connections between Europe and Asia.
As per an official announcement, the digital asset-related arms of both companies – SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) and SBI Digital Asset Holdings – will cooperate to establish the new project. It will target regulated institutional clients that use technologies and market expertise from both SBI and SIX.
This way, they will receive institutional-grade services, including issuing, listing, trading, CSD infrastructure, and custody of digital assets and cryptocurrencies. The joint venture will launch the new digital platform in Singapore.
Expectations are for the platform will launch by 2022 and will be subject to regulatory approval by the Monetary Authority of Singapore that acts as the city-state’s primary financial regulator.
Yoshitaka Kitao, SBI Group CEO and chairman of SBI Digital Asset Holdings, said that the mutual joint venture is an essential step towards building necessary global infrastructure for widespread institutional adoption of digital assets.
“Together with SDX‘s strength in Switzerland and our planned digital exchange in Osaka, this venture will establish a powerful institutional corridor between Europe and Asia,” also said Kitao.
According to SIX Digital Exchange chairman Thomas Zeeb, SBI Group is a “natural partner” to the Swiss company, having in mind their strong position in Asia and their dedication towards growing institutional digital asset markets.
“As the operator of a financial market infrastructure in both Switzerland and Spain, SIX has significant experience in delivering trusted and secure capabilities to institutional capital markets, and we look forward to bringing the best of SIX to our partnership with SBI in Asia, which we see as a strategically important region for growth.” Zeeb added.
SBI’s latest undertaking towards cryptocurrency-related projects is far from its first. Recently, the Japanese financial giant made another step into the digital asset environment.
As CryptoPotato reported, the company launched a crypto lending service for Bitcoin in November this year. The project promised to make possible the lending of only BTC initially, with ETH and XRP to follow soon. The digital asset lending service would function through SBI’s cryptocurrency arm – SBI VC Trade.
This article was first published on: Dec 8, 2020