Two banks in Argentina, Banco Galicia and Brubank, are now offering cryptocurrency investment services to their customer base, both of the lenders officially confirmed on Twitter.
Banco Galicia, which is also the largest private lender by market value in the country, added the cryptocurrency buying and selling options on its platform. It is offering services with Bitcoin , Ether, Ripple and USD Coin, the crypto media platform, Coindesk reported.
“Yes! We are adding new investment options,” Banco Galicia wrote on Twitter in a reply to an individual query. However, it did not furnish any details and asked the individual to approach the bank privately.
Banco Galicia is a subsidiary of Grupo Financiero Galicia, which is listed on both the Buenos Aires stock exchange and Nasdaq. The bank was founded in 1905 and has more than 4.2 million corporate and individual clients, it stated on its Linkedin page.
Limited Services
The lender has tapped the services of Liechtenstein-based Lirium for offering its cryptocurrency services. Lirium's COO, Martin Kopacz confirmed that the Argentinian bank is not allowing customers to withdraw or send cryptocurrencies purchased and stored on its platform. But, the bank is offering custodian services and will roll out all of the crypto-centric services in mid-May.
Banco Galicia is not the only lender in the Latin American country to offer cryptocurrencies to the customer base. Burbank, which launched its regulated services in 2017, confirmed on Twitter its cryptocurrency offerings. Its offerings reportedly include trading services with Bitcoin and Ether along with stablecoins, like USD Coin and DAI.
“Yes, we already have crypto!” Burbank wrote. “It is a functionality that is being progressively enabled for all our users. When you have it enabled you will be able to view it by entering 'Investments' from the app.”
Meanwhile, several other lenders around the globe are focused on bringing crypto to their customers. Singapore-based DBS is one of the prominent names to add crypto to its offerings, but it is still only targeted at institutional investors.
