Commonwealth Bank launches into crypto-services

Commonwealth Bank has just signed a great first in Australia. It has indeed become the first bank in the country to offer a crypto asset trading service; a service that is currently not very well served by the historical players, despite the growing interest in this market.

FACTS

• Australian customers of Commonwealth Bank will soon have the ability to buy, sell and hold crypto-assets directly from their banking app.

• About ten crypto-currencies will be covered by the service including references such as Bitcoin, Ethereum or Litecoin.

• To offer its new service, the Australian bank has opted for a dual partnership with a specialized American FinTech (Gemini), as well as with the Blockchain analytics platform Chainalysis.

• In form, Gemini's crypto-currency exchange and custody service will be integrated into the bank's application via an API.

• A first pilot phase is to be launched in the coming weeks to test the new service. Features will gradually be added to the offering, which will be aimed at more of the bank's customers by 2022.

CHALLENGES

• Responding to developing uses: Without giving specific figures, Commonwealth Bank says the launch of this service aims to meet the needs of a growing share of its customers who want to take advantage of a convenient and secure solution for accessing the crypto-asset market.

• Betting on the future: Studies contradict each other on the rate of adoption of crypto-assets in the country. Australia is not among the highest adoption rates in the world according to a recent Statista study, but another local survey just recently estimated that nearly a quarter of Australians hold or have held crypto-currencies. A Senate committee called "Australia as a Technology and Financial Centre" is considering making the country a future benchmark for this market.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• The crypto-currency market is no longer just about specialized players. The diversification of services is helping to increase adoption rates and prices, ultimately accelerating the trend inexorably.

• The historical organizations of finance have a card to play and initiatives are multiplying there too. BBVA launched its own bitcoin buying/selling platform in Switzerland in late 2020. In France, if Boursorama aggregates crypto-currencies since last April, its parent company, Societe Generale, would also consider launching an experiment on decentralized finance by storing crypto-currencies.