📅 Field note from: September 2019 | Last updated: May 2026 Originally written shortly after the FINMA announcement; updated with current SEBA/Sygnum status in May 2026.
August 26, 2019 was not a day that made headlines outside of crypto circles. But in Zug, people who had been watching FINMA’s posture toward blockchain companies for the previous five years understood that something significant had just happened.
FINMA had granted banking and securities dealer licences to two firms — SEBA Crypto AG and Sygnum — describing them in the official press release as the first “pure-play blockchain service providers” to receive this authorisation in Switzerland. The phrase “pure-play” was deliberate. Traditional Swiss banks had been experimenting with digital asset services for years. What was new was a bank built entirely around crypto, licensed to operate on the same regulatory footing as the institutions it was meant to replace.
What the Licences Actually Said
The FINMA press release from August 26 was characteristically restrained. It noted that both firms had received banking and securities dealer licences, that both were required to maintain the same capital, AML, and governance standards as other Swiss licensed institutions, and that both remained subject to FINMA’s ongoing supervisory oversight.
What it did not say — but what the legal significance implied — was that this created something that had not existed anywhere in Europe: a crypto-native bank that was also a licensed deposit-taking institution. SEBA and Sygnum could hold client crypto assets, offer fiat banking, and execute securities trades under the same roof and the same licence.
The simultaneous grant to both firms was reportedly deliberate. FINMA wanted to avoid the appearance of giving one applicant a regulatory head start over the other. Both applications had been proceeding in parallel. Both were approved the same day.
Why This Mattered Then
To understand the weight of the announcement in 2019, it helps to remember the context.
The 2017 ICO boom had collapsed in a year of enforcement actions, exit scams, and regulatory crackdowns across most major jurisdictions. By mid-2018, most crypto projects that had raised significant capital in Switzerland had either wound down or shifted operations. The “Crypto Winter” that ran through 2018 and into 2019 had thinned the Zug ecosystem considerably.
FINMA had maintained its engagement with the industry through that period. It had issued guidance on ICOs in February 2018, clarifying how it classified different token types under Swiss law. It had not capitulated to political pressure from other jurisdictions to ban or severely restrict crypto activities. But it also had not moved decisively to extend the full structure of Swiss banking law to crypto-native firms.
The August 2019 licences answered a question that had been hanging over the Zug ecosystem: would Switzerland’s regulatory framework ultimately integrate crypto banking, or would it keep digital asset services at arm’s length from the traditional financial system?
The answer, in FINMA’s language, was integration.
The Two Banks and Their Backers
SEBA and Sygnum had different profiles even at the point of licensing. Understanding those differences clarifies what each was actually trying to build.
SEBA Crypto AG was headquartered in Zug — fitting given the city’s crypto identity. Its notable backer was Julius Baer, one of Switzerland’s most established private banks, which had invested in SEBA’s funding round. That relationship with a traditional institution was not incidental: SEBA positioned itself as the bridge between the old Swiss banking world and the new one. The Julius Baer connection gave it credibility with the kind of high-net-worth clients that Zug’s private banking scene had historically served.
SEBA was operational by October 2019, having met the “secondary criteria” FINMA required following the licence grant. In December 2023 it rebranded to AMINA Bank, citing trademark conflicts with SEB Bank in Sweden. The AMINA name now anchors a group with operations in Zug, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, and — since November 2025 — an EU passport through an Austrian MiCA licence.
Sygnum was Zurich-based, and its board composition pointed toward a different target market. Former UBS CEO Peter Wuffli sat on its board. Former Swiss National Bank member Philipp Hildebrand was an advisor. Its partner network included Deutsche Börse and Swisscom, positioning Sygnum toward institutional clients rather than the private banking segment. Its focus on DLT-based securities settlement gave it a distinct technical identity from SEBA’s broader banking ambitions.
Sygnum’s path since 2019 has been methodical. It reported its first profitable half-year in H1 2024, with client assets exceeding $4.5 billion. In September 2024 it registered a subsidiary with Liechtenstein’s financial regulator — the entry point for MiCA-compliant EU expansion across all 30 EU and EEA countries, planned for Q1 2025.
What Zug Looked Like the Week After
The announcement landed on a Monday. By the following week, it had generated a predictable wave of commentary: headlines in Swiss financial media, analysis pieces from law firms, and celebratory posts from the broader Crypto Valley community.
The reaction in Zug’s actual blockchain offices was more measured. The banking licences validated what people in the ecosystem had argued for years — that Switzerland would integrate, not exclude, crypto. But validation does not immediately change the daily reality of building companies. SEBA still needed to become operational. Sygnum still needed to build its client base. The ecosystem still had to work through the aftermath of the 2018 downturn.
What the licences did change, quickly, was the tone of conversations with institutional counterparts outside Switzerland. The question “but is it actually legal and regulated?” — which had hung over Swiss crypto banking discussions for years — now had a cleaner answer. FINMA had licensed two institutions to do exactly what they were doing. That answer mattered in discussions with potential institutional clients, with correspondent banks, and with regulators in other jurisdictions watching the Swiss experiment.
The licences also influenced what kinds of businesses began planning Swiss operations in the following two years. The DLT Act, which came into force in February 2021, built directly on the regulatory architecture the 2019 licensing had established. The two moves together — banking licences in 2019, DLT Act in 2021 — created the coherent framework that made Switzerland’s position in the post-2021 institutional adoption wave more than just historical branding.
From 2019 to Now
The two institutions look different in 2026 than they did at licensing.
AMINA (formerly SEBA) has expanded geographically and rebranded to shed the naming conflict. It operates as a full-service crypto bank with global reach and an EU regulatory footprint via MiCA.
Sygnum has stayed more narrowly focused on institutional and professional clients, built a profitable business, and taken a deliberate route to EU expansion through Liechtenstein’s MiCA framework rather than the faster Austrian path AMINA chose.
Both have survived multiple market cycles — the 2021 bull run, the FTX collapse and 2022 bear market, the 2024 recovery — while operating under FINMA’s ongoing supervision. Neither has folded. Neither has had its licence revoked.
That track record is probably the most significant thing about the 2019 announcement, viewed from 2026. The sceptics who predicted that full banking regulation would prove unworkable for crypto-native firms have not been vindicated. The licences held. The banks built businesses. The regulatory experiment that FINMA began in August 2019 produced two operating institutions that are, by conventional measures, working.
What those institutions are able to offer most people who hold crypto in Switzerland — and what the KYC depth and minimum thresholds make practically accessible — is a separate question. For that, see the field note on what getting a crypto-friendly bank account in Switzerland actually takes.
The 2019 licences established that the infrastructure could exist under Swiss law. The subsequent years have been the test of whether that infrastructure is accessible.
Related field notes: FINMA’s Crypto Guidance 01/2026 — FINMA’s most recent detailed statement on crypto custody, seven years after the 2019 licences. MiCA vs FINMA: A Field Note from Someone Who Watches Both — how Switzerland’s regulatory approach compares to the EU framework both AMINA and Sygnum are now navigating.