Swissquote Bank Europe has become the first Luxembourg bank to be able to offer depositary services to digital asset investment funds, having obtained CSSF regulatory approval to act as a depositary bank for Luxembourg-domiciled funds along with its status as Vasp, or regulated Virtual ASset Provider.
The bank, established in Luxembourg since 2001, said it sees obtaining this regulatory approval to act as a depositary for Ucits and Aif funds as part of its development strategy and expansion announced last year into institutional and B2B markets. It seeks to do so by offering multi-asset brokerage and banking services to institutional investors, asset managers and wealth managers.
“With the newly-obtained regulatory approval, Swissquote Bank Europe presents a unique proposition to regulated funds in Luxembourg by offering a full range of services covering the entire asset management value chain,” said Swissquote CEO Dave Sparvell, listing “from trading platforms, execution, to custody, including securities lending and digital assets, as well as depositary banking.”
Latest technologies
Swissquote is “constantly striving to provide the latest innovative technologies to achieve superior trading performance for its clients at a lower overall total expense ratio,” he said. The bank stated that its pricing models are “traditional the reserve of Fintechs.”
Sparvell recalled his firm’s 2022 acquisition of Keytrade Bank Luxembourg which, he said “transformed Swissquote Bank Europe into the de facto leader in digital investing services in Luxembourg,” adding that the acquisition had accelerated the bank’s ability to offer services to institutional clients, as well as individual clients. The bank can offer such clients trading accounts or “the added protection of insurance wrappers offered by the Luxembourg insurance sector,” Sparvell explained.
Swissquote was formerly known as Internaxx Bank. It is a fully owned subsidiary of the Switzerland-based Swissquote Group Holding Ltd, listed on the SIX stock exchange in Zurich.
Real-time access
Swissquote’s platform offers multi-currency investment accounts with “real-time access to one of the largest ranges of tradable instruments across multiple asset classes including international stocks, ETFs funds, options and futures, structured products, spot and forward FX, commodities and CFD, credit Lombard facilities, digital assets, treasury and money-market products and physical gold”, supported by a Luxembourg-based client servicing team.
This platform offers asset managers and wealth managers “a simple and efficient way to manage discretionary mandates with differentiated portfolio strategies by defining portfolio models,” removing some of the usual operational burden and overhead.
Liquidity and more
The bank also offers liquidity solutions for eForex, cryptocurrencies, well as advanced trading connectivity and white label solutions. To stay ahead of technology, the bank is “continuously developing its proprietary platforms with the addition of new products, services, analysis tools and APIs. He added that these now include information on the “ecological, environmental and governance impact” of many publicly-listed firms.
“Swissquote Bank Europe is demonstrating its commitment to serve Luxembourg’s financial ecosystem by delivering a tailored, pragmatic and focused approach to its institutional clients,” said Nestor Verrier, the general manager of Swissquote Bank Europe.