Commonwealth Bank of Australia to offer crypto trading

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has set a remarkable record as the country’s first bank to enable customers buy, sell and hold crypto assets via the bank’s mobile application.

CBA has entered a partnership with one of the world’s largest regulated crypto exchanges and custodians, Gemini, alongside renowned blockchain analysis firm, Chainalysis to enable this.

The result of these strategic partnerships is the design of a crypto exchange and custody service which the firm hopes to make available to customers through a new feature in the app.

The lender announced that the pilot crypto trading service will be launched in the coming weeks. It also hopes to kick off additional features to customers next year. 

The lender made the decision based upon the results of a research  which showed that a significant number of its clients desire a service that allows them to access crypto assets as an investment class and are already buying, selling, and holding crypto assets through a variety of crypto exchanges.

CBA’s new feature will offer customers access to up to ten selected crypto assets including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin.

“We believe we can play an important role in crypto to address what’s clearly a growing customer need and provide the capability, security, and confidence in a crypto trading platform. CBA will leverage Gemini’s crypto exchange and custody service and integrate it into the CommBank app through APIs,” Matt Comyn, CBA CEO said.