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Switzerland may be crypto-friendly, but strong regulation makes the business complicated. Finma has a very pronounced opinion about the business to avoid opening a door for money launderers.

We have defined our processes very carefully and discussed at length with Finma. But of course, the controls are a good thing because we don’t want to get involved in any dubious crypto business.

What do you expect will be the consequence of Brexit for your London branch?

We work on the assumption of a worst-case scenario, whereby you can’t access the European market from London anymore. That means we will no longer be able to take care of our European clients from London. Therefore, we have bought Luxembourg-based Internaxx bank. We will cater to the European clients via Luxembourg in future.

In the autumn, you presented an expansion plan for Asia. What exactly are you planning to do – Swissquote.asia?

We already have clients in Singapore. Mainly in the business-to-business segment, in other words from wealth managers, investment funds, brokerages and smaller banks. They already use our services.

So why this new bid then?

We soon found out that once you reach a certain level, clients demand access to a contact person. That’s why we decided to open a branch in Singapore. It has to be regulated of course and we already lodged our application with MAS. The regulator in Singapore is quite efficient in issuing licenses and it looks as if we would receive our license by September.

«The Asian business is in demand»

We also already have a local head of office – it is our former head of Dubai. In Dubai, he did exactly what he will do in Singapore, that is to build our business. At the start, our team will be small, with 4 to 5 members of staff only, but once the revenue is coming in, we will for sure expand.

How strong are you in Asia at the moment?

We have to invest in those markets in any case. At the moment, Asian markets are a weakness on our platform. We have covered Europe and America very well, but we don’t really have that much on offer in Tokyo, Shanghai, Korea and Hong Kong. But this business is in demand. Not only with the clients we hope to win in Asia, but with many clients in Switzerland who wish to trade with Asian equities.

Will you make your service available to small investors as well?

In Switzerland for sure, but not in Singapore in a first phase. First we focus on institutional clients. The retail business follows in a second phase.

The regulator in Singapore won’t issue a retail license from the start. They first want to know how your business works. Once we’ve established our business though, we will be able to launch a second phase of growth.

How much will you invest in Asia?

In the first phase, we will spend about 3 million Swiss francs ($3 million) for the Singapore operations. For the staff we need of course, but also to cover for the initial losses that any startup incurs. And also for the upgrading of our trading platform.

Marc Berki is a founding partner and the chief executive officer of Swiss bank Swissquote. The company has its roots in a company called Marvel Communications that was established in 1990 and six years later led to the founding of the bank. Buerki has been CEO of the online bank since 1999 – today, the company has some 660 members of staff. Last autumn, Buerki announced the launch of a next expansion phase, establishing an office in Singapore. Swissquote has applied for a license in the city-state.