Reuters
- UBS Group is reportedly considering offering cryptocurrency investments to its wealthy clients, Bloomberg reported.
- The plan is still in early stages, but any offering would be a small portion of a client's total investment.
- UBS would join Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley in offering cryptocurrency services to clients.
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UBS Group, the largest investment bank in Switzerland, is reportedly in talks to offer cryptocurrency investments to its wealthy clients, Bloomberg first reported, joining many firms in responding to increasing client demand for digital assets.
The Swiss bank is in the early stages of exploring crypto options for clients, sources told Bloomberg, but any offering would only be in small portions of their total investment to protect them from cryptocurrencies' famous price swings.
"We are monitoring the developments in the field of digital assets closely," UBS said in a statement obtained by Bloomberg. "Importantly, we are most interested in the technology which underpins digital assets, namely the distributed ledger technology."
UBS joins the ranks of Goldman Sachs, which recently announced it will trade non-deliverable forwards, a derivative product tied to bitcoin's price, and formally announced the launch of a cryptocurrency trading desk.
Morgan Stanley, meanwhile, has offered its wealth management clients access to bitcoin funds since March, which allows certain clients ownership of the cryptocurrency.
Most recently, Citigroup is said to be considering launching cryptocurrency services, according to the Financial Times, driven by a "very rapid" rise in interest in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
The cryptocurrency market has seen a dizzying rally this year amid growing institutional interest.
The top two, bitcoin and ether, have surged 98% and 440% respectively, while dogecoin, which started as a joke in 2013, skyrocketed an astounding 10,500%. The total value of the market hovers around $2 trillion.