The Swiss unit of Spanish bank BBVA is expanding its cryptocurrency custody and trading services to include USD Coin (USDC).
BBVA’s institutional and private banking clients in Switzerland can now manage their USDC funds on the same platform where they handle their traditional investments. They can exchange, custody, or automatically convert USDC in near real-time into euros, dollars, or any other currency.
The bank says the addition of the stablecoin will enable its institutional clients to speed up their trading operations by enabling them to transfer value more efficiently with blockchain and secure their stablecoins into BBVA’s vault.
As well as speeding up transaction, the arrival of USDC also provides a way to hedge against the volatility of other cryptocurrencies, by converting assets into stablecoins to preserve value during market fluctuations.
USDC is the third cryptocurrency BBVA has added to its digital asset service in Switzerland following the launch in 2021 with bitcoin and ether. In 2023 it migrated its custody capability to Metaco's Harmonize platform, which streamlines transactions and allows connection with other blockchain networks.
“We want to offer our private clients a simple access to the tokenized products they are most interested in and cannot access through traditional financial institutions. Meanwhile, our institutional clients need us to provide options to guarantee the assets they manage,” explains Philippe Meyer, head of digital solutions and blockchain at BBVA in Switzerland. “We will analyze all the crypto assets they are investing in to continue building our offering with further innovative solutions.”