February 16, 2020
By Sharan Kaur Phillara
DBS Bank, the largest bank in Southeast Asia by assets, will launch a digital assets trading desk for retail customers by the end of 2022, according to an earnings call on Monday.
Here’s what we know:
- The bank launched a trading desk for institutional investors in 2021. “We are starting the initial work to expand it beyond the current investor base,” said CEO Piyush Gupta on today’s earnings call. “And that includes the appropriate thinking about suitability and the potential for fraud… we are looking for an end-of-year [launch] to take something to market.”
- The “current investor base” is a reference to an already existing digital asset trading desk that the Southeast Asian banking giant launched in December 2020.
- Currently, DBS users are required to call a banker to place orders for cryptocurrencies. “What happens is that you’ve got 24/7, but the customers still need to call and speak to bankers,” Gupta said. “So the first order is to make it all online, make it self-service, make it instant, and make sure the internal processes are robust to be able to support that.”
- Piyush Gupta expects DBS Bank to improve its digital asset trading platform to “make the access to the digital assets a lot more convenient.”
- Presumably by the end of 2022, the service would remove such intermediaries and be done online-only. The same services will also become available to retail investors.
About the author
Sharan Kaur Phillora’s thirst for knowledge has led her to study many different subjects, including NFTs and Blockchain technology – two emerging technologies that will change how we interact with each other in the future. When she isn’t exploring a new idea or concept, she enjoys reading literary masterpieces
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