Julius Baer is expanding its crypto wealth management services in Dubai, marking the firm’s first major digital-assets push beyond the borders of its native Switzerland.
The Swiss private bank’s Middle Eastern subsidiary JBME will apply imminently for “a digital assets license variation” on top of its existing permissions with the Dubai Financial Services Authority, it said in a statement, which would allow the company to arrange and provide advice and custodial services on digital assets like Bitcoin, Ether and other cryptocurrencies.
Julius Baer views the United Arab Emirates as a “key geography,” the bank’s head of digital assets development Jonathan Hayes said in an interview, citing increased economic development in the region.
In Switzerland where the bulk of its crypto activity sits, Julius Baer recently began offering so-called lombard lending to select crypto clients, Hayes said, allowing customers to borrow against digital assets custodied with the bank. One of the first private banks to launch such a service for crypto, the bespoke offering is presently limited to those with diversified portfolios that also include traditional assets.
Jurisdictions across the United Arab Emirates have sought to attract crypto businesses as a crackdown by US authorities leads companies to seek out friendlier shores. Several major cryptocurrency exchanges including Binance Holdings Ltd., OKX and Crypto.com have all applied for licenses with Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, even as the watchdog has tightened its scrutiny of the industry since the collapse of the FTX exchange in November 2022.
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Traditional financial companies including BlackRock Inc. and Bank of New York Mellon Corp. have become more active in digital assets over the past year, with many laying the groundwork for offering their own services. FTX’s demise has made some institutional investors wary of piling too heavily into crypto. Still, demand from wealthy individual clients has been sufficiently broad, ranging from the ages of 25 to 70, said Julius Baer’s Lucia Desmarquest, deputy head of its central and eastern European bank.
The bank — which first launched crypto services in May last year — currently offers standard advice on digital assets to investors domiciled across 25 countries, including in Luxembourg and Singapore. The firm’s wealth management services cover “the top 15 or so” tokens in the market, Hayes said, all of which are subject to a thorough due diligence process and a review panel.
