The global division of Spanish financial institution Banco Santander – Santander Private Banking International – has reportedly introduced a new feature that enables customers with Swiss accounts to engage in the investment and trading of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

Given Banco Santander’s extensive history of more than 160 years and its broad customer base of 166 million individuals, the private banking division, which attends to 210,000 affluent clients and oversees assets and deposits amounting to around $315 billion, holds significant influence.

Hence, the decision to permit high-net-worth clients associated with Santander Private Banking International to engage in BTC and ETH trading is noteworthy and has notable implications for the industry.

Santander’s Historic Move

Although Santander’s initial launch of cryptocurrency trading services is said to be limited to BTC and ETH, the banking giant plans to expand its offerings to include other cryptocurrencies once they meet the specified screening criteria, as per information obtained from an internal communication leak reported by Coindesk.

The report states that Santander initiated the provision of BTC and ETH trading services in response to client requests via relationship managers.

The bank intends to safeguard the private cryptographic keys of the tradable assets within a regulated custody framework.

John Whelan, head of crypto and digital assets at Santander, reportedly said in an email,

“The Swiss regulation related to digital assets is one of the first and most advanced in the world since it provides clarity and a comprehensive regulatory environment for our clients. As holding of crypto as an alternative asset class continues to expand, we expect that our clients prefer to rely on their existing financial institutions to be responsible for their assets.”

Santander is yet to officially confirm the development.

Tryst With Crypto

The latest development comes almost a year after Santander