Popular Australia-based online brokerage firm SelfWealth is planning to allow its over 300,000 users to buy and sell crypto.
Australian Securities Exchange-Listed (ASX) company, SelfWealth today announced a partnership deal with crypto exchange, BTC Markets to offer crypto trading services to its clients in Q2 2022. The move will make SelfWealth the first online brokerage platform to offer such services in the country.
“Currently, moving between popular investment types usually requires access to multiple trading platforms and for investors to move money multiple times… We wanted to make investing in cryptocurrency as seamless as possible,” SelfWealth CEO Cath Whitaker said.
Established 10 years ago, SelfWealth is Australia’s online investment solution offering brokerage services. The platform currently holds about $8 billion in assets under management.
According to the report, SelfWealth clients will be able to trade five different crypto assets, pending regulatory approval from Australia’s financial watchdog, AUSTRAC. However, the five specific crypto assets were not disclosed and will only be revealed after regulatory approval.
Prior to this partnership, SelfWealth had been in discussions with several crypto platforms to offer crypto trading services after a survey carried out by the firm in July revealed that two-thirds of its customers already hold or plan to invest in crypto.
Financial institutions jumping into the crypto bandwagon
Interest in crypto among financial institutions has continued to surge in recent times. These firms keep showing interest in crypto in order to expand their business operations as well as satisfy their clients demand for the asset class.
There have been an increasing number of financial institutions planning to offer crypto trading services soon. Last November Australia’s Commonwealth Bank (CBA) announced a strategic partnership with crypto exchange platform Gemini to allow its customers to invest in crypto assets, directly via the CommBank app.
Last week, reports emerged that the world’s largest investment management firm BlackRock will soon start offering crypto trading services via its Aladdin investment platform.
This week, Singapore’s largest bank, DBS, disclosed plans to offer crypto services to its retail investors by the end of 2022.
