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Gazprombank (Switzerland), a branch of the bank owned by Russian energy giant Gazprom, made its first transactions with customers as part of its new bitcoin services.
Announced on Tuesday, the bank’s launch of institutional cryptocurrency services comes after the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority granted approval.
“Digital assets will become increasingly important to our customers and the global economy,” said Roman Abdulin, the bank’s CEO.
The cryptocurrency services, including cryptocurrency accounts, investment management and asset custody, were developed in collaboration with fintech firm Avaloq and digital security infrastructure provider METACO.
Gazprombank (Switzerland) said it has also become a member of the OpenVASP association, which aims to develop an open protocol for the transmission of transaction information between virtual asset service providers (VASPs) and individuals. This work seeks to make it easier for cryptocurrency services to align with the regulatory guidelines of the Financial Action Task Force, including the so-called travel rule.
In partnership with Swiss cryptocurrency firm Bitcoin Suisse, the bank is also working on a uniform communication protocol for digital asset payments between OpenVASP members, according to the announcement.
