Singapore’s DBS Bank halts plans to offer retail crypto trading

The CEO of Singapore’s DBS Bank, Piyush Gupta, has said that the bank will not offer cryptocurrency services. The recent statement contradicts what the bank had earlier said about plans to offer crypto services to retail investors.

Singapore’s DBS Bank will not offer crypto services

In February 2022, DBS Bank, the largest banking institution in Singapore, announced that it would offer cryptocurrency trading activities to retail clients by the end of this year. At the time, the bank said that it would make crypto trading services available through instant deposits and facilitate transactions without an intermediary.

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However, the bank is going back on these plans, with the CEO saying that regulators were “rightfully concerned” about making digital asset services available to retailers.

In an interview, Gupta said,

But I’m not holding my breath. I don’t think the environment will allow us to make it available to retail anytime in the immediate future.” Nevertheless, Gupta reiterated that cryptocurrencies would become a key piece of the financial sector.

DBS Bank CEO is bullish on crypto

Gupta has remained positive about the potential of the cryptocurrency sector. The CEO had said that the crypto sector could be seen as an alternative to gold. However, he noted that cryptocurrencies were highly volatile, which limited their use as a medium of exchange.

“The other big challenge is volatility in value. If you want to use this to pay for something, you don’t know what it’s costing you. Today cryptos are a potential source of speculated value, it’s unlikely that this is a source of money as we know it,” Gupta added.

However, the executive noted the benefits that came from the cryptocurrency sector. These include adopting blockchain technology, which presented many benefits to the financial sector. According to Gupta, blockchain could streamline the traditional and digital financial sectors and transform how payments and settlements are handled. Gupta also stressed that the regulatory framework for digital assets needed to be regulated. He opined that the central bank was the best regulator for the digital asset sector.