blockmanity.com
Gazprombank, the third largest bank in Russia has partnered with banking technology provider Avaloq and Blockchain startup Metaco to launch their Cryptoasset service.
The state-owned bank is entering the Crypto business with its Swiss subsidiary to service the demand of its clients. Gazprombank aims to help banks, wealth managers and other clients expand and manage their portfolios including Cryptocurrencies.
SILO, which is Metaco’s Crypto wallet is used to store and manage Crypto assets in Avaloq’s banking suite. The aim is to make it as easy to store and manage Crypto assets as the traditional asset classes without having to worry about private keys or wallet management.
The Russian bank had started a pilot program back in April to test Cryptocurrencies. Due to the increasing demand from clients the state-owned bank has finally decided to launch a full-fledged product scheduled somewhere in mid-2019.
Thomas Beck, Group CTO at Avaloq, said in a Press Release:
“Thanks to the close integration of the Metaco storage solution, banking and wealth management customers won’t have to trust additional third parties when trading with cryptocurrencies. By bringing together all asset classes in one portfolio view, the solution will also ensure the highest levels of convenience and usability.”
Blockmanity’s Take
In my opinion, this is a huge step toward more institutional adoption, for one Metaco’s product is already tried and tested in major banks like HSBC and Barclays and second the product aims to make it easy for institutional investors to dip their toe in the Cryptpophere without having to worry about all the problems that come along with it.
We know that Russia is bullish on Blockchain and wants to be a Blockchain powerhouse, even though the bank is operating in Switzerland for the Crypto product it can be expected that with more regulatory clarity it will also expand to Russia eventually.