Crypto bank Sygnum expands its scope of regulated ventures in Singapore

• Swiss crypto bank Sygnum has gotten a nod to expand digital asset activities in Singapore
• The approval is a boost in the company’s efforts to offer tokenisation of assets

Swiss crypto bank Sygnum today announced that its Sygnum Singapore subsidiary has received approval to venture further into offering regulated products in the country.

Sygnum Singapore now holds in-principle approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to provide additional services under the capital markets services (CMS) licence it gained in 2019. The three new regulated activities include providing custodial services, corporate advisory on finance, and access to tokenised products, including digital assets.

Sygnum is a first of its kind – digital asset bank – and provides banking services around digital assets, including asset management, lending, custodial and B2B services.

Tokenised products into Web3

With the approval, Sygnum Singapore will kick off the tokenisation of digital assets and capital market products. Particularly, the crypto bank plans to tokenise the recently launched venture fund, SBI-Sygnum-Azimut Digital Asset Opportunity Fund.

The bank intends to offer financial advice to digital creatives and Web3.0 projects as part of its future plans. Further, it will allow investors to turn their NFTs, collectables, and metaverse items such as virtual land into securities.

Via its tokenisation service, currently hosted in Switzerland, Sygnum enables asset owners to issue tokens representative of part ownership in various digital assets, NFTs and securities. Some of Sygnum’s tokenised products include a CryptoPunk NFT and a Picasso work of art.

Leveraging blockchain tech to attract investor masses

Following the approval, Sygnum CEO and Co-founder Gerald Goh said that the bank’s new regulated offerings are part of its efforts to use blockchain tech to become a platform of choice for investment managers and Web 3.0 entities.

“With the recent conclusion of our Series B fundraise, we are committed to accelerating the expansion of our suite of offerings in the financial hub. These three additional activities that Sygnum will be able to conduct enable us to provide asset managers and Web3 players in Singapore a new, fully-regulated platform to raise capital and attract a wider investor base by leveraging blockchain technology,” he said

The move comes shortly after a $90 million Series B raise in January that placed Sygnum’s valuation at $800 million. The funding round led by Sun Hung Kai & Co limited was meant to facilitate the expansion of its Web3.0 offerings and capture global markets.