Sygnum is the Swiss bank with a digital-asset specialisation, founded in 2018 and operating under a FINMA banking licence in Zurich plus a Sygnum Singapore entity under MAS perimeter. The franchise covers regulated cryptoasset and tokenised-asset custody, brokerage, asset management, and tokenisation issuance services for institutional and qualified-investor clients across EMEA and APAC. Sygnum is among the most established bank-grade digital-asset franchises operating across Europe and Asia, with the FINMA banking licence putting it on a structurally different supervisory footing from the non-bank custodians (Fireblocks, BitGo) and from the federally chartered US trust (Anchorage Digital). For an institutional tokenisation operator looking for a single counterparty that can hold custody, run brokerage, and issue tokenised products under a regulated bank wrapper, Sygnum is the most-cited European and APAC reference point.
What it is
Sygnum was incorporated in Switzerland and granted a FINMA banking licence in 2019, with the Singapore entity (Sygnum Singapore) operating subsequently under MAS perimeter. The Swiss banking licence is the structurally distinguishing feature: Sygnum operates under the same Swiss banking-supervisory regime as a traditional Swiss bank, with the additional perimeter overlay covering its digital-asset activities. The Singapore entity operates under MAS as a capital markets services licence holder, which positions the franchise to serve APAC institutional clients from a regional regulated wrapper rather than as a Swiss-extraterritorial operation.
The product range covers regulated cryptoasset and tokenised-asset custody, an institutional brokerage and trading franchise (cryptoassets, tokenised products, stablecoins), asset-management products including tokenised funds and structured products, and a tokenisation-issuance service for asset managers and corporate issuers wanting to launch tokenised securities under a regulated bank wrapper.
Operating model
Sygnum runs the regulated-bank pattern applied to digital and tokenised assets. Clients onboard, complete bank KYC and AML, and hold balances on the bank's books under per-client segregation, with the bank's own balance sheet sitting under FINMA prudential supervision (Switzerland) and under MAS perimeter (Singapore). The bank-licence wrapper materially simplifies the regulated-counterparty conversation relative to a non-bank infrastructure or trust-company custodian: due diligence maps onto the existing regulated-bank framework that institutional risk committees already know how to evaluate.
The tokenisation-issuance franchise is the structurally interesting product line. Sygnum has issued tokenised products including private-market and venture-fund interests, tokenised securities, and structured products under the bank's regulated wrapper. The architectural pattern is that the bank acts as issuer, transfer agent, and custodian for the tokenised instrument from inside the same regulated perimeter, collapsing operational handoffs that a non-bank tokenisation programme would coordinate across multiple counterparties.
Tokenisation and platform footprint
- Tokenised-product issuance: tokenised private-market funds, venture-fund interests, and structured products under the FINMA bank wrapper, with the Singapore entity progressively extending similar issuance under the MAS perimeter.
- Custody for institutional cryptoasset and tokenised-asset balances: among a small set of European bank-grade custodians for the institutional asset-manager and family-office cohort.
- Brokerage and trading: institutional execution franchise covering cryptoassets, stablecoins, and tokenised products against the broader institutional venue set.
- APAC channel: Sygnum Singapore is one of the few non-APAC-headquartered digital-asset bank franchises with an active MAS-perimeter presence. The regional competitive map runs partly through Zodia Custody, partly through the Hong Kong VATP set (HashKey, OSL), partly through the Japanese trust-bank framework, and partly through Sygnum's regional bank-grade alternative.
Regulatory positioning
The principal regulated perimeters are the FINMA banking licence in Switzerland and the MAS capital markets services perimeter in Singapore. The Swiss bank licence is structurally distinctive: it puts Sygnum under Swiss banking-prudential supervision rather than under a trust-company or VASP-only perimeter, which materially changes the regulated-counterparty conversation with institutional clients. The MAS perimeter in Singapore positions the franchise inside the regional regulated-counterparty universe under MAS supervision, with the relevant licensing categories covering institutional digital-asset custody, brokerage, and tokenised-product activity.
For tokenisation-issuance work, Sygnum operates inside the Swiss DLT-securities regime (the Swiss federal framework for distributed-ledger securities) for products issued out of the Swiss bank, with corresponding APAC-perimeter rules under the MAS SCS framework applying to products issued out of the Singapore entity.
Recent activity
- 2024-2026. Continued expansion of tokenised-product issuance and named institutional-client mandates across both Swiss and Singapore entities; the consolidated mandate map is not consistently disclosed.
- The APAC institutional bank-grade digital-asset custody map continued to evolve as Zodia Custody expanded under its MAS progress and the bank-internal digital-asset desks at regional GSIBs (DBS, Standard Chartered, HSBC) advanced their own tokenisation programmes.