Singapore's largest bank, DBS, is planning to apply for a license that will allow it to offer cryptocurrency services to Hong Kong residents, as part of the Chinese territory's push to become a hub for digital assets.
“We plan to apply for a license in Hong Kong so that the bank can sell digital assets to our Hong Kong clients,” Sebastian Paredes, CEO of Hong Kong-based DBS Bank, announced at a briefing on Monday, according to Bloomberg.
Paredes said DBS understands the risks associated with digital assets and is willing to become one of the first lenders in Hong Kong to offer cryptocurrencies once regulations are clear and DBS “fully understands the framework for participation.”
The DBS development follows comments last month from Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary Paul Chan, who said the region’s government remained committed to developing its cryptocurrency infrastructure and had recently completed a proposal for virtual asset service providers (VASPs). VASP) the legislative work required to establish a licensing system. .
DBS initially launched an institutional cryptocurrency exchange in Singapore in late 2020. In September 2022, the major bank launched autonomous cryptocurrency trading services for accredited investors, enabling them to trade cryptocurrencies on DDEx, one of the world's first digital exchange platforms backed by a bank exchange.
Then in November, DBS Bank announced that it had started integrating decentralized finance (DeFi) applications into its marketplace and launched trading tests of foreign exchange (FX) and government securities using a permissioned (private) DeFi liquidity pool . The test is part of Project Guardian, a project spearheaded by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to explore the tokenization of traditional assets.
In October, the Hong Kong government announced that they were exploring the possibility of lifting a ban on retail crypto trading in the region as part of a plan to boost economic growth by capitalizing on interest in cryptocurrencies, marking a major policy shift in China. the field of digital assets.
