Julius Baer, one of Switzerland’s oldest banking organisations, has begun providing advisory, trading, and investing in crypto assets to the company’s rich clientele, including Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
The Zurich-based firm has launched a number of trial initiatives to allow its wealthy clients to try their hand at investing in or trading in cryptocurrency. Philipp Rickenbacher, the company’s CEO, feels that the present cryptocurrency market upheaval may signify a turning point in comparison to the dotcom bubble’s demise 30 years ago.
Phillipp added that after that, a new sector has evolved that revolutionised humanity’s lives. He believes that the crypto and DeFi sectors, which have the same potential as Internet firms in the late 1990s, will follow suit.
Unlike Baer, another prominent Zurich-based financial organisation, UBS Group AG, one of the world’s largest wealth management firms, avoids digital assets, calling them “speculative.”
Customers are not interested in the “speculative asset class,” according to its CEO, Ralph Hamers, and the bank does not advise on speculation. According to the bank’s chief investment office, cryptocurrency has also failed to serve as an inflation hedge or a tool to diversify one’s portfolio.
Apart from the present crypto service for its customers, Julius Baer has also invested in SEBA Crypto AG, one of only two fully regulated crypto banks in Switzerland.
For clients interested in cryptocurrency, blockchain, or decentralised finance (DeFi) solutions, the company plans to build up its own research. These initiatives would focus on putting crypto trading, token booking, and compliance to the test.
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