Despite cryptocurrency’s recent progress, it is not surprising that they will soon hit another hurdle. In spite of this phenomenon, the main Spanish banks warn of the risks involved in investing in these assets, which are on many people’s lips.
Spanish Banks on Crypto
‘The transformation of the financial sector’, Gonzalo Gortázar, CEO of CaixaBank, one of the spanish banks crypto remarked that is the size that is taking the market cryptocurrencies, twice that of Lehman Brothers when they were bankrupt, and the effect that it could have on the economy if there were a crisis of confidence in these assets.
“I have no interest in cryptocurrencies or the desire to invest because I don’t understand what the intrinsic value of them is,” he said in the forum organized by this newspaper, while acknowledging “an element of instability.” Likewise, Gortázar indicated that there is a “high” amount of black money in these cryptocurrencies. “There are many ways to enter the world of cryptocurrencies without going through CaixaBank, so we still don’t have the comfort of advising or facilitating that,” he said.
The CaixaBank does not offer any services related to cryptocurrencies, although it acknowledges that it is a field it is studying, and for this reason it is awaiting technological and regulatory advances. From the entity, they have explained that it is an issue they closely follow, much like other technologies providing high levels of innovation to the sector at an international level.
As a result of this, Banco Sabadell maintains a “prudent” stance regarding this type of asset, and are not considering launching a product of this nature until they are more regulated. “We don’t see the point of participating in crypto assets,” said César González-Bueno, CEO of the company, at the same conference held by ElEconomista. Aside from the possible money laundering caused by the rise of digital currencies, they warn individuals of “high risks” associated with investing in these businesses.
In the case of Bankinter , the entity does not recommend that its clients invest in crypto assets. The orange entity believes that “it refers to a merely speculative asset, and due to this characteristic and because it is not regulated, at Bankinter we are not recommending it to our clients,” said the bank’s CEO, María Dolores Dancausa. On the other hand, it does consider that the blockchain “has come to stay” and “presents innumerable advantages, the most important of which is its traceability on the asset”, they declare. However, if at any time they decided to launch a product in this sense, they would do so from their digital bank, EVO.
For its part, Santander is the one of the only Spanish banks that plans to launch cryptocurrencies investment products in the short term. “We are a leader in crypto. We issued the first bond on blockchain. We have a strong team working on it (…). Our clients want to buy bitcoin, but we have been quite slow to adopt it due to regulatory issues. Now we are about to about to offer cryptocurrency ETFs, “said its president, Ana Botín, in an interview with Bloomberg about spanish banks crypto.
Switzerland, the ideal ecosystem for BBVA
BBVA does offer the possibility of buying and selling crypto assets from its subsidiary in Switzerland . Since June, trading bitcoin has become a reality for BBVA Switzerland customers after six months of testing with a selected group of users. At the moment, BBVA Switzerland’s offer provides for the services of buying and selling bitcoin and its custody, with the aim of expanding it to other cryptocurrencies, although the entity will not offer advice on this type of investment unlike Spanish banks crypto.
Also Read: Swissquote, Switzerland’s largest online bank, plans to launch its own cryptocurrency exchange
This step occurs in Switzerland because this country has the ideal ‘ecosystem’ to do it. Although it is not ruled out that bitcoin operations will spread to Spain or other countries in the future, a series of regulatory, supply and demand factors must first be met to create the right context for this market to be safe and prepared for everyone. the investors.
