In a blog post on Insight Sygnum, Switzerland and Singapore-based cryptocurrency bank Sygnum announced that it has received the capital markets services (CMS) license in Singapore, allowing it to provide asset management services in the country.
The company said that it has received the license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country’s central bank.
Now CMS license in hand, the bank can provide digital asset management services to institutional and private qualified investors in Singapore.
According to the Sygnum, its first product will be a multi-manager fund, planned for launch on Nov 1.
These funds are also known as funds-of-funds and invest in other types of funds such as mutual funds or hedge funds. Multi-manager fund will soon be available in Switzerland through Sygnum’s banking platform.
Stefan Mueller, head of asset management at Sygnum, stated:
“The CMS licence is an important milestone to establishing our asset management arm, leveraging the vibrant financial environment in Singapore. This is complementary to our banking services in Switzerland and will also benefit our Swiss institutional and private qualified investor clients.”
Sygnum, also known as Sygnum Bank AG, is the digital asset bank founded on Swiss and Singapore heritage. According to the company, it all started as an ambitious idea over dinner among the Sygnum co-founders in Singapore in Q4 2017.
Sygnum was founded by an experienced and interdisciplinary team of banking, investment, DLT and regulatory experts, and is backed by a distinguished group of individuals and institutions.
On August 30, 2019, Sygnum became the world’s first digital asset bank as it received its banking and securities dealer licence from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).
But becoming the world’s first digital bank was not easy as the bank, at that time, said:
“But the road to becoming the world’s first Digital Asset Bank was not always a straight one. Submitting our banking and securities dealer application to FINMA on October 31st, 2018, the process took 303 days; in retrospect a remarkably short time for creating something so new.”
Mathias Imbach, co-founder and CEO of Sygnum Singapore and member of the executive board of Sygnum Switzerland, said:
“Our dual location, in Singapore and Switzerland, is one of the cornerstones of our strategy. This is reflected across team, advisory council, board of directors as well as investor base. All have been instrumental in our achievements so far across both countries.”
