Gazprombank Switzerland – a division belongs to a top-tier banking entity in Russia – has reportedly conducted the pilot phase for its Bitcoin (BTC) offering, after obtaining regulatory greenlight from Swiss authorities. 

Specifically, Gazprombank will reportedly team up with its long-running partners, such as fintech company Avaloq and crypto custody provider Metaco, to make its new crypto solution available. 

Head of Gazprombank Switzerland, Roman Abdulin, reportedly claimed that the new service has a primary goal of simplifying crypto transactions, as much as how it goes with traditional assets”. 

“Digital assets will become increasingly important for our clients and the global economy. We are pleased to work together with leading Swiss-based entities on the further development of the Swiss and global crypto and blockchain ecosystem.”

Together with rolling out its first BTC transactions, Gazprombank Switzerland further disclosed details of its initiative to become a part of OpenVASP, a major industry association established with a goal of handling regulatory compliance for virtual asset service providers (VASPs).

The development surfaced following the successful acquisition of a greenlight from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, to let the bank roll out its crypto custody and trading services to its institutional and corporate customers, in October this year. 

Numerous other banking entities in Russia are reportedly also carrying out piloting for blockchain and crypto services in foreign territories. Sberbank – major Russia-based state-run bank – reportedly became a member of a blockchain-powered platform for commodity trade finance, via its Swiss division.