UBS Group AG is in the early stages of planning to offer wealthy customers digital currency investments, joining U.S firms in seeking to give broader access in response to client demand.
The Swiss firm is exploring several alternatives for offering the asset class, people familiar with the plan said. Any investment offering would be a very small portion of the clients' total wealth because of the volatility, while options include investing through third-party investment vehicles, one of the people said, declining to be identified as the details are private.
More global securities firms are offering cryptocurrency services. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is pushing deeper into the $1 trillion Bitcoin market and opened up trading with non-deliverable forwards, a derivative tied to Bitcoin's price that pays out in cash. Morgan Stanley plans to give rich clients access to three funds that will enable ownership of crypto and Bank of New York Mellon Corp. is developing a platform for traditional and digital assets. Citigroup is also considering crypto services.
"We are monitoring the developments in the field of digital assets closely," UBS said in a statement. "Importantly, we are most interested in the technology which underpins digital assets, namely the distributed ledger technology."
