The Swiss Stock Exchange (SIX) has acquired a major stake in Custodigit.

Custodigit is a joint venture created by Swisscom and Sygnum in 2018 that aimed to grow a trusted and regulatory compliant financial market infrastructure for digital assets.

With this agreement, SIX Digital Exchange, Swisscom and Sygnum Bank enable Swiss banks to offer access to digital assets for their customers through a unique Institutional Digital Asset Gateway. This is subject to the appropriate regulatory approvals.

The gateway will support the complete investment value-chain including trading, smart order routing, settlement, custody as well as access to secondary markets. This partnership gives banks and their customers a trusted, safe, secure, compliant yet seamless access to crypto-currencies and digital assets.

Depending on a bank’s strategic objectives, it has the option to leverage Custodigit’s offering either through a direct platform integration solution, or a managed sub-custody setup provided by Sygnum.

Based on the already available Custodigit platform, an initial joint service will be released in Q1 2021 with plans to add significant capabilities throughout the year.

The Institutional Digital Asset Gateway will enable banks to develop new financial services and yet to be imagined products around cryptocurrencies and digital assets for their customers. This partnership will also build upon the recent SIX investment in Omniex.

According to Thomas Zeeb, Chairman SIX Digital Exchange and Member Executive Board, SIX,

“Coupled with our recent CBDC announcement with the SNB and BIS, this is potentially one of the most significant shifts in the digital finance space right now. Custodigit is a functioning operator for digital asset servicing, not just an idea to be realised. Coupled with our very productive relationship with Swisscom and Sygnum Bank, it is clear that we have the perfect balance of elements to allow clients to access the digital markets to meet their needs. Today, and for the future.”

Peter Hofmann, CEO, Custodigit commented,

“This partnership with SIX offers us the ability and conviction to strengthen and globalize our offering. It enables us to bring more value to what is clearly going to be the future of capital markets.”

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