BBVA has partnered with Ripple’s Metaco to expand crypto services in Switzerland.

Switzerland-based BBVA will migrate its crypto protection services to Metaco's Harmonize platform. It also plans to expand its crypto trading services beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum. Ripple acquired Switzerland-based Metacon in May 2023.

Switzerland-based BBVA, the Swiss arm of Spanish banking giant BBVA, announced on Thursday that it has partnered with blockchain platform Metaco.

The partnership will see BBVA use Metaco's Harmonize platform to host its crypto protection service. This comes as the bank embarks on a new phase in its crypto strategy and growing interest from institutional clients will help it expand its footprint.

BBVA to expand trading beyond BTC. ETH

Founded in 2015, Metaco, a Swiss-based digital assets storage platform, launched its Harmonize platform in 2015. It started in 2021. Ripple acquired Metacon in May 2023, one of the leading crypto companies in the world and the creator of XRP.

Harmonize provides an institutional standard that financial institutions and corporations can use when building their blockchain and crypto services. BBVA has offered Bitcoin and Ethereum trading as well as a security offering since 2021.

Through this partnership, security is being migrated to Metaco Harmonize and will work to expand its cryptocurrency trading services to other cryptocurrencies by leveraging its features. It is also used by the product for tokenization.

“Our partnership with Metaco, which fully integrates our infrastructure in Avaloc, allows us to stay ahead of the market, offering a very robust and compliant platform,” said Alfonso Gómez, CEO of BBVA in Switzerland.

Metaco Founder and CEO Adrian Trecani added:

“Metaco and BBVA Switzerland have a long history of collaboration, and we are proud to take our partnership to new heights, with award-winning digital asset business offerings that meet the unique requirements of individuals and institutions.”

Metaco has key partnerships with international banks and financial institutions including HSBC, DZ Bank, Societe Generale and UnionBank.

Recently, Standard Chartered supported Zodia Integrated Metaco. Also this week, the Ripple platform partnered with giant IBM on the Hyper Secure Offline Signature Orchestration (OSO), making it easy and secure for top banks and financial institutions to deploy and host digital assets in cold storage. .