- BBVA in Switzerland will migrate its crypto custody service to Metaco’s Harmonize platform.
- The bank also plans to expand its crypto trading services beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum.
- Ripple acquired Swiss-based Metaco in May 2023.
BBVA in Switzerland, the Swiss subsidiary of the Spanish banking group BBVA, announced on Thursday that it has entered into a partnership with blockchain infrastructure provider Metaco.
Under the agreement, BBVA will migrate its crypto custody operations to Metaco’s Harmonize platform. This move is part of the bank’s renewed crypto strategy and aims to strengthen its service offering as institutional demand for digital asset solutions grows.
BBVA to expand trading beyond BTC, ETH
Metaco, founded in Switzerland in 2015, launched the Harmonize platform in 2021. The company was acquired by Ripple in May 2023. Harmonize is designed to meet institutional standards, giving banks and corporations the tools to develop compliant blockchain and digital asset services.
Since 2021, BBVA in Switzerland has offered trading and custody for Bitcoin and Ethereum. Through the Metaco partnership, the bank will migrate custody capabilities to Harmonize and leverage the platform’s features to broaden its trading services to additional cryptocurrencies. The bank also plans to use Harmonize to support its tokenization initiatives.
“Our partnership with Metaco, which will fully integrate our existing infrastructure within Avaloq, allows us to stay ahead of the market, offering the most robust and compliant platform,” said Alfonso Gómez, CEO of BBVA in Switzerland.
Adrien Treccani, founder and CEO of Metaco, commented:
“Metaco and BBVA Switzerland have had a longstanding history of partnership, and we are proud to bring our collaboration to new heights, enabling award-winning digital asset offerings that meet the specific needs of both private clients and institutions.”
Metaco has established partnerships with several global banks and financial institutions, including HSBC, DZ Bank, Société Générale and UnionBank. Recently, Zodia — a custody platform backed by Standard Chartered — integrated Metaco’s services. This week, the Ripple-owned company also announced a partnership with IBM on the Hyper Protect Offline Signing Orchestrator (OSO), a technology designed to simplify and secure cold storage deployment for major banks and financial institutions.