Swissquote had its most successful year as an online bank in 2018 and now plans to expand its business to Asia.
Swissquote had a profit of 44.6 million Swiss francs ($44.6 million) in 2018, the Gland-based firm said in a statement on Friday. The report confirmed preliminary figures published in January.
The company had net new money of 3.12 billion francs in 2018 (an increase from 2.71 billion a year earlier). Client assets nevertheless declined to 23.8 billion from 24.1 billion as a result of market developments. The total number of accounts rose 6.4 percent to 329,100.
Singapore Branch
The bank has profitted from a series of growth initiatives and innovative projects. Swissquote acquired Internaxx, a Luxembourg-based bank. The purchase unlocked the European market for Swissquote. Regulators have authorized the deal and Swissquote will complete the transaction in the first quarter.
The Swiss bank has now set its sight on a further expansion – taking its business to Asia. Swissquote founded a branch in Singapore and will apply for a capital markets services license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). At the same time, Swissquote will activate 14 Asian exchanges on its platform for trading in real time.
Crypto-Trading Solutions
The new initiative to grow its business will leave a dent on the company’s books this year. Combined with a slow start in trading this year, Swissquote expects pretax profit to decline by about 10 million francs compared with 2018, when it reached 53.8 million francs.
Swissquote in 2017 opened its platform to trading with cryptocurrencies, a service it expanded further at the end of 2017. Since then, clients of the bank were able to trade the five largest cryptocurrencies via its platform.
On March 21, the company will broaden this business further, making possible the transfer of cryptocurrencies from external wallets to a Swissquote account and vice versa. This will leave the firm with a fully integrated cryptocurrency trading platform and depositary for private and institutional clients, the company said. Swissquote will use a product developed by fintech company Crypto Storage to enable this service.
Management Reshuffle
The company has decided to reshuffle and strengthen the executive team to reflect the strong growth of the business in recent years. Michael Ploog, the CFO, will become its chief investment officer. Yvan Cardenas, will become CFO in his stead. Lino Finini will be appointed chief operating officer and Jan De Schepper will be appointed chief sales and marketing officer.
Mario Fontana, who has been the company’s chairman since 2002, won’t stand for re-election at the annual general meeting. Markus Dennler, who has been on the board of directors since 2005, will follow in his footsteps.
