Arab Bank Switzerland, a leading Swiss private bank, will provide custody and brokerage services for Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Arab Bank Switzerland will target high net worth clients for the services. In doing so, the firm will become one of the first private banks in Europe to offer such facilities for digital assets.

The bank said it was addressing the growing demand from existing and generally younger clients for digital assets services.  That’s because these clients were looking for diversification within their portfolios by adding digital currencies.

Arab Bank Switzerland will use the Taurus Group’s platform

The bank’s digital services will operate on a secure custody platform created by the Swiss fintech Taurus group.

Launched by two former senior private bankers, Taurus is a specialist in crypto assets. It claims to maintain the strictest software and hardware security standards via cryptographic currency standard (III). Also, Taurus is FINMA, FCA, and MAS compliant.

In a parallel announcement, Taurus said it had successfully deployed TAURUS-PROTECT, its cold storage solution for exchanges, banks and institutional clients with Arab Bank Switzerland.

TAURUS-PROTECT is an on-premise cold storage solution that uses FIPS 140-2 level 3 certified hardware security modules (HSMs), some of the most secure hardware in the world.

Blockchain the future

The bank said in its announcement that it expected the blockchain to disrupt the financial industry. Accordingly, it is its intention to be among the pioneering banks to offer digital asset services.

Though the bank has high-tech intentions, it has a rather conservative background. It was created in 1962 in Switzerland to serve as a bridge between the Arab and Western worlds. It is an associate company of Arab Bank plc, one of the biggest banks in the Middle East.

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