Southeast Asia’s Largest Commercial Bank to Launch Retail Crypto Trading in 2022

Southeast Asia’s largest commercial bank DBS Bank announced that it is set to launch a cryptocurrency trading service for retail traders this year.

At the financial institution’s Q4 earnings call on Monday, reporters asked DBS CEO Piyush Gupta if the bank had anything in reserve for the digital assets community considering the recent blistering growth of the crypto industry. The DBS executive responded to the question saying:

“What we will focus on in the first half, the first two quarters, of this year is to make the access to digital assets a lot more convenient.

Today, what happens is that you’ve got 24/7, but the customers still need to call and speak to bankers. So the first order is to make it all online, make it self-service, make it instant, and make sure the internal processes are robust to be able to support that.”

Gupta also noted: “At the same time, we’ve started doing the work on seeing how we can, in a sensible way, take it out and expand it beyond the accredited investor base. And that includes making sure we have the appropriate thinking about [the] suitability, [the] potential for fraud, etc.” The DBS executive added:

“Nevertheless, by the time we nail all of these things down, I think you are looking more like the end of the year before we can actually bring something to market.”

Southeast Asia’s Largest Commercial Bank Obtains Licensing to Provide Crypto Services in Singapore

DBS launched its cryptocurrency trading platform in December 2020, followed by the launch of a trusted service of cryptocurrencies in May last year and the launch of its first security token offering.

Meanwhile, recent reports noted that DBS’ brokerage division has gotten approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)—Singapore’s central bank—to offer crypto products and services.