Singapore’s largest bank expands crypto trading services for its 100,000 customers

by Arthur · September 23, 2022

The rapid expansion of the cryptocurrency sector is prompting more and more financial institutions to offer crypto-related services and products for their customers, including Singapore’s largest bank DBS.

In fact, DBS Group Holdings Ltd. expanded access to crypto trading services for its 100,000 investors belonging to the DBS Treasures section, Bloomberg’s Natalie Ching Mun Choy reported on 23 September.

This part of the bank’s business covers affluent customers with investable assets of at least $246,000, and the new development will allow them to trade cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and XRP, on the DBS Digital Exchange.

From now on, these customers will be able to take part in the bank’s crypto trading operations with a minimum investment of $500. Previously, this option was only available to institutional and corporate investors, family offices, as well as clients of DBS Private Bank and DBS Treasures Private Clients.

Crypto trading is increasing despite the circumstances

This development comes a month after DBS bank’s stock exchange reported a significant increase in the volume of crypto transactions carried out on its member platform for institutional and professional investors, more than quadrupling in June compared to April 2022, despite volatility in the crypto market.

Back in February 2022, DBS CEO Piyush Gupta outlined the bank’s plans to launch a retail crypto trading desk by the end of the year, devoting the first half of the year to improving access to the current digital asset trading desk. clients.

In August 2021, the bank received “in-principle” approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to offer crypto trading services to asset managers and businesses, after which it opened an institutional digital asset trading desk, Finbold reported.

At the same time, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, senior minister and minister in charge of MAS, stressed that the watchdog was cautious about cryptocurrencies, reflected in the advice against any retail participation in trading such assets.

Earlier in June, the regulator’s CTO Sopnendu Mohanty told MAS his stance to be “brutal and relentlessly tough” on the crypto sector’s bad actors, as well as questioning the value of private crypto assets and announcing a state-backed alternative.