The Swiss exchange SIX, announced on Friday that it is building a platform to enable trading, settlement and custody of crypto assets. The group is the operator of Switzerland’s main exchange and made the announcement sequel to report that the government intends to give cryptocurrency based businesses full access to banking services.
According to the release, the company said “[it] is building a fully integrated trading, settlement and custody infrastructure for digital assets.”
The soon to be launched platform called Swiss Digital Exchange (SDX) will come under the regulatory agencies that have oversight function over SIX. These are the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma) and the Swiss National Bank, with the latter supervising the agency as a Financial Market Infrastructure operator.
The company has realized that there is a gap in the financial market, especially with regard to digital currencies and are optimistic that the new platform shall bridge this gap. The statement from the company said:
“SIX Digital Exchange will be the first market infrastructure in the world to offer a fully integrated end to end trading, settlement and custody service for digital assets. The service will provide a safe environment for issuing and trading digital assets, and enable the tokenization of existing securities and non-bankable assets to make previously untradeable assets tradable.”
Although it is not certain that the claim is accurate, what is obvious is that the company is pioneering integration of traditional assets with digital asset trade in the country.
Jos Dijsselhof, the company’s CEO said,
“this is the beginning of a new era for capital markets infrastructures. For us it is abundantly clear that much of what is going on in the digital space is here to stay and will define the future of our industry.”
The digital asset industry has been reported as being an underserviced sector, dominated by big players such as BitGo and Coinbase which just entered the market. With the entry of SIX, it is obvious that the digital currency market has continued attracting the attention of financial institutions despite its volatility.
SIX wrote:
“First we will enable the tokenization of bankable assets like stocks or bonds and, potentially, at a later stage non-bankable assets. Whether we will also make cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin or existing ‘ICO tokens’ available, [it] is still open.”
The company’s objective “is to reliably measure the performance of the largest and most liquid crypto assets and tokens and provide an investable benchmark for this asset class,” its website describes. “The prices for the crypto assets and tokens are obtained from multiple exchanges.” The report said.
