Key Takeaways:
- Julius Baer Group will be issuing bitcoin and other cryptocurrency products to high-net-worth people.
- They are witnessing a bubble similar to the dot-com bust, which gave rise to a new industry.
- The bank initially teamed with bitcoin bank SEBA in 2019.
Julius Baer Group has announced the development of a proprietary digital wealth management system centered on Bitcoin. The private bank stated its goal of positioning itself at the crossroads between bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and the fiat world.
“It could well be that at this very instant we are witnessing a bubble-burst moment of the crypto industry, and we all know what happened after the dot-com bubble burst 30 years ago,” said CEO of Julius Baer Philipp Rickenbacher during a presentation to investors.
Julius Baer has invested in SEBA Crypto AG. Now, SEBA Crypto AG is one of only two fully-regulated crypto banks in Switzerland. While acknowledging market volatility, the private bank announced its goal to position itself at the crossroads between bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and the fiat world.
The Banque de France chose SEBA Bank to test the integration of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). SEBA Bank was given a Swiss banking and securities dealer license in August 2019. It was the first time that a regulatory authority gave a license to a financial services firm with a focus on digital assets.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, according to Julius Baer, will become a “legitimate sustainable asset class in an investor’s portfolio” in 2019. “We are happy to have Julius Baer as an investor,” SEBA CEO Guido Buehler said at the time. SEBA will offer easy and secure access to the bitcoin world in a thoroughly controlled environment. SEBA and Julius Baer’s partnership would undoubtedly benefit both parties and clients.”
In addition, the bank intends to do its own research on cryptocurrency, DeFi, and blockchain for clients. This will be very much beneficial as eventually, it will help in providing regulated advice on investing and trading in the asset class, as well as the platform for them to do so at Baer.
Rickenbacher says that the bank is all set and prepared to deal with the disruptions that decentralized finance will “inevitably” create to both clients and the bank’s operations.
