For the first time, a reputable regulator – the Swiss Financial Market Authority – has granted banking licences to financial firms that concentrate on digital assets. The two firms are Sygnum and Seba.

Sygnum performs traditional bank-grade 'secure' services for digital assets to its customers, which include private qualified investors. SEBA is building a Swiss bank that will combine the world of digital assets with traditional banking in a vertically-integrated set-up. Both licences will come into effect when the firms fulfil all secondary criteria specified by FINMA; they will not be operational, nor will they allow the firms to 'onboard' customers, until then.

Sygnum offers a 'lombard loan' facility that makes the most of the liquidity of fiat currencies and cash flows through loans on digital assets. SEBA, when it begins operations next month, will help professional clients to invest, keep, trade and borrow against traditional and digital assets, as well as issue tokens, in one place.

Bitcoin Suisse, meanwhile, has reportedly applied for the kind of licence that Sygnum and Seba have received. Sygnum is also waiting for a Capital Markets Services licence to emerge from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. It wants this to pave the way for fund management services, including a digital-asset multi-manager fund.