Southeast Asia’s Largest Bank DBS to Launch Crypto Trading for Retail Investors

DBS, the largest bank in Southeast Asia, is planning to launch crypto trading for retail investors this year, the bank’s CEO has revealed. He added that in the first half of this year, DBS will focus on making “access to digital assets a lot more convenient.”

DBS Bank to Offer Crypto Trading to Retail Customers

DBS, the largest bank in Southeast Asia by assets, is planning to launch cryptocurrency trading services for retail clients this year.

During the bank’s fourth-quarter earnings call Monday, CEO Piyush Gupta was asked whether DBS has any plans to expand its digital asset exchange and if there is a roadmap for rolling out digital asset trading for retail investors given the growth in that market.

Gupta replied:

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.

He detailed: “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.”

The DBS boss revealed: “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 suitability, potential for fraud, etc.”

The DBS CEO continued:

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.

DBS Bank launched a cryptocurrency exchange in December 2020. The bank then launched a trust service of cryptocurrencies in May last year, followed by the launch of its first security token offering.

The bank’s brokerage arm has also obtained approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the country’s central bank, to provide crypto services.

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