SelfWealth, a non-bank brokerage listed in Australia, to add crypto to its platform

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SelfWealth, an Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) listed company and one of the nation’s largest non-bank online brokers with 95,000 investors, is looking to add crypto to its platform.

According to a report released by the Australian Financial Review on Sunday, the company is in talks with cryptocurrency exchanges to add functionality to trade the nascent asset class.

Approximately AU $ 5.9 billion (US $ 4.4 billion) of the total value of the securities are currently held on the SelfWealth platform.

The company plans to add up to 10 cryptos to its platform, including bitcoin and ether, by the end of the year, which will be kept in an integrated third-party wallet. SelfWealth will also look to charge a fixed percentage fee for each crypto transaction it performs on behalf of clients, as it does among its traditional equity trades.

More than two-thirds of its customer base, made up of traders and investors, own or plan to invest in digital assets, according to the report, which means increased demand among traditional investors in the country.

SelfWealth CEO Cath Whitaker said that being able to buy and sell crypto as well as trade local and US stocks using the ASX Clearinghouse Electronic Sub-Register System, or CHESS, on the same platform would be an Australian first.

In the United States, platforms such as Robinhood already allow customers to trade stocks and cryptocurrencies in one place, but Australian investors have been slower to embrace cryptocurrency trading among the types. traditional.

“Switching from one popular type of investment to another usually requires access to multiple trading platforms and for investors to move money multiple times,” Whitaker said.

ASX is looking to replace its aging CHESS system with a variant of distributed ledger technology with the goal of speeding up settlement and transactions, but not without delays. No precise date has been given on when the replacement will take place.

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