FINMA approves new blockchain financial services

FINMA, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, has just announced that it has granted for the first time a banking licence and a securities trading licence to two new blockchain financial service providers.

In the statement, there is a brief preamble to how business models based on blockchain technology should not be exempt from regulation, especially with regard to the measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, with a clear reference to the KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) procedures. 

The FINMA document also reiterates that the fight against money laundering is only effective by identifying the person who carries out the transactions, so as to control the parties involved.

In any case, FINMA has today granted two authorisations, one to SEBA Crypto SA, a bank whose purpose is to create a bridge between digital and traditional assets, and another to Sygnum Ltd, which manages and trades digital assets such as bitcoin and digital francs (CHF). 

Finally, it should be remembered that in the past FINMA also granted authorisation to a crypto bank and to an asset management fund.