SEBA Bank has listed a suite of digital-assets-based exchange-traded products (“ETPs”) on the SIX Swiss Exchange, in partnership with ETF liquidity provider GHCO.
This is a major milestone for the FINMA-licenced Swiss Bank which was launched in 2018 by ex-UBS Group AG bankers who have secured CHF100 million from a mix of Swiss and international institutional and private investors to build a regulated bank to bridge the gap between the crypto and traditional financial economies.
The product suite listed on SIX consists of Bitcoin and Ether Tracker Certificates in USD, Tracker Certificate on the SEBAX Crypto Asset Select Index, and the first CHF currency-hedged Bitcoin Tracker.
GHCO will act as the liquidity provider and market maker for the newly listed ETPs. The partnership between SEBA Bank and GHCO will leverage the firms’ respective expertise in asset management and market-making as investor appetite for digital assets continues to grow.
Stefan Schwitter, Head Investment Solutions at SEBA Bank, said: “We believe our products stand out based on the institutional-grade quality and the highly competitive price points. We are providing a secure and cost-effective alternative to holding coins directly at exchanges.”
Guido Bühler, CEO SEBA Bank, added: “We set out to build a bridge from traditional banking to the digital world. Our product philosophy and the exceptional performance track record of the SEBAX® Index are a reflection of this ambition.”
This is to be the first ETP listing in partnership with GHCO as both companies agreed to bring multiple digital assets ETPs to the market as such products are seen as a cost-effective access to digital assets without the typically associated custody and security challenges.
Stefan Kaba-Ferreiro, Head of Trading and Managing Partner at GHCO said: “ETPs are a key development for investing in crypto assets as it matures as an asset class and we see more demand for reliable, easily-accessible infrastructure with deep pools of liquidity.”
The listed ETPs are fully backed by coins with institutional-grade custody from SEBA Bank, which obtained its FINMA license in 2019 as it has gone live in early October that year.
The banking and securities dealer license from the Swiss regulator FINMA set a new standard for banking in the Blockchain and digital asset economy. That moment had significance far beyond the Swiss financial industry”,
The Swiss bank’s offering includes custody storage, trading and liquidity management as well as asset and wealth management. Swiss blockchain firms will be provided with accounts and custody for fiat and digital assets. Digital asset tokenization solutions for professional and institutional investors are also on SEBA’s agenda.
smartTrade Technologies, the multi-asset electronic trading solutions provider, was chosen to deliver SEBA’s state-of-the-art crypto and traditional assets trading platform. As the chosen partner to provide SEBA’s trading solution, smartTrade will deliver a solution which encompasses connectivity to a large number of liquidity venues, aggregation, and execution, as well as Smart Order Routing (SOR), pricing, distribution, risk, order management, and analytics. smartTrade will also supply SEBA with hosting and collocation services.
