Liechtenstein bank now offering direct cryptocurrency investments
Bank Frick's new offering may reflect growing interest in cryptocurrencies as serious long term investments.
One of Liechtenstein's more prominent high-end boutique banks is now offering direct cryptocurrency investment and cold storage solutions to its clients, which may reflect a growing interest in cryptocurrency among well-heeled traditional investors. The institution only has 90 staff members across Liechtenstein and the UK, but enjoys many valuable relationships in the area, with ties at the highest level of local government. Mario Frick of the bank's founding family, heads up its strategic direction and is the former Prime Mininster of Liechtenstein.
"The offering is aimed at professional market participants and financial intermediaries," says the press release.
It's starting off with the top 5 cryptocurrencies by market cap; bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC), purchasable with euros, US dollars and Swiss francs. Trading takes place once a day.
It's the first financial institution in Liechtenstein to offer these kinds of services and aims to do it in line with all applicable regulatory standards.
"At Bank Frick, cryptocurrency investments are subject to the same strict statutory measures as traditional financial transactions. Bank Frick is a fully regulated bank under Liechtenstein and European (EU/EEA) law. Clients can only invest in cryptocurrencies once they have been fully identified and verified. The verification and identification process also involves checking the origin of the money used to invest in them."
It's also looking at business clients who want to diversify their investments into cryptocurrency.
"Our services are in demand from companies across the whole of Europe," said Frick chief client officer Hubert Büchel. "This is because they know that we can offer them reliable support in implementing their business models with cryptocurrencies and blockchains in line with the existing regulatory framework. We aim to place crypto-banking on at least the same level of quality as traditional banking."
"Financial intermediaries, such as asset managers and fiduciaries, can make use of our new offering to successfully differentiate themselves in the market and add value for their clients. With these direct investments, intermediaries and their clients can easily get to know a new, exciting universe and diversify their portfolios."
But "investments in cryptocurrencies are highly speculative and so they should form only a small part of a portfolio," Büchel cautions.
This cautionary note might take on a slightly eerie significance for Bank Frick, whose former CEO Jürgen Frick was murdered in 2014 by a client whose fund had failed.
Disclosure: At the time of writing the author holds ETH, IOTA, ICX, VEN, XLM, SALT, BTC, NANO
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