BancaStato, a bank in the canton of Ticino in southern Switzerland, has launched regulated crypto trading, a service that allows customers to buy, hold and sell bitcoin on the bank’s existing web and mobile apps, digital assets bank Sygnum said on Thursday.
The bank connected the Sygnum system interface to its Avaloq core banking system and digital channels, a setup that places bitcoin trading within the same applications used by clients for traditional accounts.
At launch, customers can trade bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptos with market orders placed at the price or value of the US dollar.
Bitcoin sits at the center of the offering, a pattern across a wave of European banks adding crypto services. BancaStato clients get asset exposure through a regulated channel instead of an independent exchange, and their assets are held by Sygnum instead of a bank balance.
Sygnum said clients’ assets are stored in an institutional layer, a multi-layered solution built on hardware and software controls, management processes, and independent external audits. The company said that all customer assets are held off-balance sheet according to rules and regulations, which is a structure intended to protect the bank’s holdings if the bank goes bankrupt.
The point is important for bitcoin holders, as the manager’s assets held on the balance sheet remain separate from the claims of the failed institutional lenders.
The integration works on Sygnum’s B2B API without a separate order management system, a way the firms say reduces costs and complexity. “BancaStato, becoming the first bank in Avaloq’s SaaS space to enable customers to buy, hold and sell crypto via API through Sygnum directly within banking platforms, marks an important step in maturing and reducing the infrastructure of regulated digital assets,” said Fritz Jost, CEO of Sygnum B2B.
Founded in 1915, BancaStato operates its main banking and digital channels on the Avaloq platform through a software-as-a-service model. Curzio De Gottardi, the bank’s head of products and services and vice-chairman of its executive board, made the launch an extension of the bank’s existing plans. “Our seamless integration of traditional assets, investment solutions – and now digital assets – further enhances our group’s future-proof offering,” he said.
BancaStato joins Zuger Kantonalbank and more than 25 other banks and financial institutions on the Sygnum B2B platform. Sygnum said its partner banks offer more than a third of the Swiss population a route to owning digital assets.
Bitcoin in Swiss banks
The launch adds to the system of Swiss institutions that deliver BTC to their customers. Zürcher Kantonalbank, the fourth largest bank in the country, issued bitcoin trading and storage; St. Galler Kantonalbank has opened the purchase and storage of bitcoin for retail customers; and UBS has moderated bitcoin trading for select wealth clients. Sygnum itself has pioneered bitcoin-linked lending, from a partnership with Relai on a BTC-backed loan to a $50 million bitcoin-backed syndicated loan for Ledn.
Sygnum has a Swiss banking license and, as of June 30, 2026, a Crypto-Asset Service Provider license under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, granted by the Financial Market Authority of Liechtenstein.
That license allows EU banks to tap Sygnum’s infrastructure to launch digital asset services, an approach other providers like Bitcoin Suisse have taken in the same space.
