BancaStato and Sygnum launch regulated crypto trading in Switzerland

Swiss cantonal bank BancaStato has gone live with regulated cryptocurrency trading through a partnership with digital-asset banking firm Sygnum, using the banks’ existing technology stack. The launch, announced this week to Cointelegraph, brings crypto buy, sell, and holding services to BancaStato clients via their current web and mobile banking apps.

BancaStato’s customers can access four crypto assets—Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Solana (SOL)—directly in their banking interface. The integration is built on Sygnum’s B2B banking platform and connected into Avaloq’s core and digital banking software, aiming to reduce operational duplication for the bank.

Key takeaways

• BancaStato is now offering regulated crypto trading and custody through its existing web and mobile banking channels.
• The service is powered by Sygnum’s B2B platform, integrated into Avaloq banking software rather than requiring a standalone crypto system.
• Clients can trade and hold BTC, ETH, LTC, and SOL through BancaStato’s apps.
• Sygnum says its approach is designed to shorten the timeline for banks to move from planning to live crypto offerings.
• BancaStato joins a growing network of financial institutions already using Sygnum’s B2B infrastructure.

Crypto access embedded in BancaStato banking apps

According to BancaStato’s announcement shared with Cointelegraph, the cantonal bank for the Italian-speaking Ticino region has joined Sygnum’s business-to-business platform to provide regulated digital-asset services.

The practical change for customers is that crypto functionality is routed through the bank’s familiar user experience. BancaStato clients can buy, sell, and hold the supported assets through existing web and mobile banking applications, rather than using a separate crypto venue.

Sygnum and its technology partners also highlighted that the system is designed to integrate into BancaStato’s current banking operations. In particular, Sygnum’s trading and custody functions are connected through Avaloq’s platform, allowing the bank to offer crypto without adopting an entirely independent infrastructure stack.

How the Avaloq–Sygnum setup is intended to work

The integration links Sygnum’s application programming interface (API) to Avaloq, which develops the core banking and digital banking software used by many financial institutions. The companies said this approach connects Sygnum directly to Avaloq’s banking environment.

They also claim the design can remove the need for a separate order management system for crypto activity. If accurate in deployment, that matters for operational efficiency: order management is often one of the more complex layers in moving from “decision” to a production-grade trading and custody service. Streamlining those components can reduce implementation friction and ongoing maintenance requirements.

Fritz Jost, Sygnum’s chief B2B officer, told Cointelegraph that BancaStato is the first bank using Avaloq’s software-as-a-service model to enable customers to buy, hold, and sell crypto assets via the bank’s e-banking platforms using Sygnum’s API. Jost described the rollout as a milestone for the maturity and scalability of regulated digital-asset infrastructure.

Sygnum’s expanding European banking partnerships

BancaStato is not an isolated example of European banks using the Sygnum model. Sygnum says it has more than 25 financial institutions using its B2B platform to deliver regulated digital-asset services. In addition to BancaStato, Sygnum’s banking partners cited include Societe Generale-FORGE, PostFinance, and VZ Depotbank.

This kind of partnership structure is built around letting banks reuse a licensed and operational infrastructure layer—while banks retain responsibility for their own customer-facing regulatory decisions and arrangements.

Jost told Cointelegraph that partner banks remain responsible for their regulatory frameworks, while Sygnum provides elements including licensing, custody, and trading infrastructure. He argued that this separation is what can allow banks to move from internal planning to a live offering “in months rather than years,” reflecting the time savings compared with building crypto capabilities and obtaining approvals independently.

MiCA licensing and the post-transition ramp

The BancaStato launch arrives amid a broader shift in Europe’s crypto regulatory environment. In late June, Sygnum announced that its Liechtenstein-based subsidiary, Sygnum Europe AG, received a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) license under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework from Liechtenstein’s Financial Market Authority (FMA).

Sygnum said the MiCA license helps enable European partner banks to “plug into” standardized bank-to-bank infrastructure without facing a multi-year process of creating and licensing their own crypto operations. As described by Jost, the licensing status supports the ability to deliver regulated services through established channels rather than starting from scratch.

The MiCA license also came shortly before the end of the transitional period for the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation on July 1, according to Cointelegraph coverage of the transition timeline. With the transitional phase concluded, regulated crypto services in Europe have more defined compliance expectations, making it more important for institutions to have a clear operational model for custody and trading.

For investors, traders, and other market participants, these bank integrations can influence the “on-ramps” available to traditional finance customers. Even when token support is initially limited, extending regulated access through mainstream banking interfaces can broaden participation and reduce reliance on separate crypto exchanges for entry-level activities.

BancaStato’s next step will likely be whether it expands beyond its initial set of four supported assets, and how quickly other Avaloq-using institutions follow the same API-based approach. Readers should also watch for future announcements on additional token support and for how partner banks refine their operational processes as MiCA compliance requirements fully settle into day-to-day business.