Today Hong Kong digital bank Zhong An Bank (ZA Bank) unveiled a retail cryptocurrency trading service. It claims to be the first Asian bank to launch a retail service. Rather than building an exchange from scratch, like most banks, it is launching in partnership with an existing cryptocurrency exchange, HashKey Exchange
Initially the bank supports trading only in Bitcoin and Ethereum in both HKD and USD. For the first three months after activation, ZA Bank is offering 0% commission, with minimum investments of USD 70 or HKD 600.
The offering has been integrated with the main bank app. The bank cited a recent survey by the Hong Kong Association of Banks, saying it found that 70% of respondents would find it convenient to trade crypto via their banking apps.
“The rise of cryptocurrency presents investors with more diverse asset allocation opportunities,” said Calvin Ng, alternative CEO of ZA Bank. “As a bank, we prioritise security and compliance, which is why we’ve partnered with HashKey, a global-leading licensed virtual asset exchange, to meet regulatory standards and deliver bank-grade security in virtual assets trading – our key competitive advantage in the Asian market.”
ZA Bank is Hong Kong’s largest digital bank with 800,000 users as of June 2024 (Hong Kong population 7.5m). The company is owned by ZA Global, an affiliate of Zhong An, the large Chinese insurance company which was co-founded by the entrepreneurs behind some of China’s biggest technology firms – Alibaba, Tencent and Ping An insurance.
Other bank cryptocurrency services
While ZA Bank may be the first Asian bank to offer retail crypto trading, Singapore’s DBS Bank was the first to launch a crypto service almost four years ago, which it built in-house. However, the DBS Digital Exchange targets only institutional and accredited investors.
Probably the largest number of retail bank crypto services are in Latin America. Europe is catching up, especially with the enactment of the bulk of the EU’s MiCA crypto regulations at the end of this year. BBVA was one of the pioneers, starting a service in Switzerland in mid 2021, followed by the launch of Garanti BBVA Digital Assets in Turkey last year.
Ledger Insights has published a report exploring the use of DLT by banks for payments, including cross border payments and FX.
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