Banks are finally catching on to cryptocurrency

Clients of Swiss bank Falcon Private Bank can now invest in the cryptocurrency. The first bank to do this.

Normalization of the bitcoin continues. After gradually investing in the field of the real economy, the bitcoin is about to become a financial product like fiat. The Swiss bank Falcon Private Bank announces the possibility for its clients to invest in cryptocurrency, whose price has increased more than 100% since the beginning of the year.

With this service, the Zurich-based company becomes the first bank to accept cryptocurrency on the market. The bitcoin broke its glass ceiling in June, exceeding 3,000 dollars, although a crash this weekend has made it fall back below the $ 2,000 mark.

A customer request

The fact that a bank offers this service is symptomatic of the evolution of the image of the cryptocurrencies. Falcon Private Bank took advantage of the growing demand of its customers for this type of products. "We have many customers interested in buying bitcoin for investment purposes, and we are making it easier for them," Arthur Vayloyan, Global Product and Service Manager for Falcon, told New Scientist .

The advantage of this banking intermediation is that clients of the Falcon Private Bank do not need to be experts in blockchain and cryptocurrency to invest. As for stocks and bonds, they simply need to seek advice from their asset manager and give him a mandate to buy and store bitcoins on their behalf. It is their responsibility to verify the return, the amount and the risks corresponding to such investments. Aware of the potential of such a service, Falcon Private Bank has already planned to extend its activities to other virtual currencies such as Ethereum.

A risky system?

However, the offer of such a service, raises several questions. Particularly in terms of security. Some specialists in cryptocurrency are worried about the risk of centralizing the currencies purchased by the banks. Gathered on the same server, the bitcoin held by a bank are more attractive to hackers.

A bank like the Falcon Private Bank could hold large quantities of bitcoin. "It is much easier to steal digital currency than traditional currency," warned bitcoin expert, Andreas Antonopoulos. The Falcon Private Bank, already pinned in 2016 for shortcomings and defects in control, knows what remains to be done.

-cryptodog