By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 26th, 2024
Alfonso Gómez, CEO of BBVA Switzerland, believes the collaboration with Ripple will keep the two firms ahead of the market.
BBVA Switzerland has expanded its strategic partnership with Ripple-owned Metaco. Metaco made the announcement on Wednesday via social media.
Per the announcement, BBVA Switzerland successfully migrated its digital asset operations to Metaco’s custody platform, Harmonize. BBVA Switzerland became the first TIER 1 Bank in the Eurozone to provide cryptocurrency custody and trading services in 2021. Since then, the bank has tried to improve its blockchain services and educate its clients in this regard.
By strengthening its partnership with the crypto custody platform, BBVA Switzerland can now pursue digital asset operations for institutional clients. Speaking on the development, Adrien Treccani, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Metaco highlighted the history of the two firms.
“Metaco and BBVA Switzerland have had a longstanding history of partnership, and we are proud to bring our partnership to new heights,” he asserted.
How the Partnership Works
Following the announcement, BBVA Switzerland will be looking to build on Harmonize. This will make for a solid foundation since Harmonize is fully integrated with Avaloq’s Crypto Assets platform and Core Banking system.
Again, the Swiss subsidiary will use Metaco’s services through a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. The model will also support future business use cases for BBVA relating to digital assets. Consequently, the bank will be able to accelerate its digital asset offerings for potential institutional clients.
Alfonso Gómez, CEO of BBVA Switzerland, believes the collaboration will keep the two firms ahead of the market. He said:
“Our partnership with Metaco, which will fully integrate our existing infrastructure within Avaloq, allows us to stay ahead of the market, offering the most secure and compliant infrastructure.”
Gomez believes the collaboration will ensure more speed, efficiency, and the highest standard of governance.
Metaco Attracting the Biggest Banking Players
BBVA Switzerland is not the only traditional financial institution to partner with Metaco. In February, the digital asset firm partnered with two German banks, DekaBank and DZ BANK AG, to deploy Harmonize as the core platform for their institutional digital asset offerings.
Later in April, Liechtenstein’s VP Bank adopted Metaco’s digital solution. Likewise, HBSC joined the list of financial institutions embracing Metaco and will go live with the service by 2024.
According to Craig Perrin, Chief Sales Officer at Metaco, “Metaco’s digital asset technology infrastructure is purposely designed to support financial institutions to capitalize on the digital asset economy.”
If that is the case, then it is expected that more financial institutions looking to perform digital asset operations will come on board.