The first bank-owned crypto exchange plans to expand its services from retail traders to institutional investors.
Japan-based SBI Holdings initially geared its exchange VCTRADE towards retail traders, allowing people to deal in four cryptocurrencies, including XRP, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Ether. The exchange is scheduled to delist Bitcoin Cash in June.
This week, however, an SBIVC spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the exchange plans to expand its focus.
“SBIVC currently offers services only for retail customers. After AML/CFT and custody solutions that we are planning to implement are finalized, we would like to move forward and start providing services to institutional investors.
Prioritizing customer asset protection, the SBI Group will make use of its synergies between current businesses, such as securities and FX, to acquire new customers.”
SBI Holdings offers a long list of services to its customers, from brokerage and investment banking to foreign exchange services.
The Japanese financial giant invested in Ripple in January 2016. In April, Ripple announced that Yoshitaka Kitao, the representative director, president and CEO of SBI Holdings, had joined the tech company’s board of directors.
That same month, SBI Holdings reported that its overarching crypto company known as SBI Virtual Currencies made a profit of almost 360 million Japanese yen, worth about $3.2 million, for the full fiscal year from April 2018 to March 31, 2019, according to Cointelegraph Japan.
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