Swiss watchdog rejects banking licence for Bitcoin Suisse
- By Reuters -
- Mar 17, 2021
ZURICH: The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has informed Zug-based financial intermediary Bitcoin Suisse AG that it considers its 2019 application for a banking licence to be ineligible for approval, the markets watchdog said on Wednesday.
“Various elements that are relevant under licensing law make it unlikely that a licence will be granted. Among other things there are indications of weaknesses in the money laundering defence mechanisms.
Bitcoin Suisse AG has now informed FINMA that it is withdrawing the application for a banking licence at the present time. FINMA is therefore terminating the licensing procedure,” FINMA added in a statement.
The Birth of Bitcoin
In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, a new and soon-to-be revolutionary technology was brought into the world. Satoshi Nakomoto (a name which remains but a pseudonym to this day) published the Bitcoin Whitepaper, proposing a Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System which would allow online payments to be sent over the internet without using a bank or institution as an intermediary. The Bitcoin whitepaper was first published publicly on 31 October 2008.
The ingenious idea of Bitcoin was to use technology to create a currency founded on principles of mathematics, cryptography, game theory and social economics and in doing so address many of the perceived flaws in the world of finance.
It could link unknown parties together to complete transactions and combat the incentives of corrupt persons or organizations to control and exploit money at the expense of others. For the first time, it was possible to explicitly depict and allocate digital value on the internet without the help of a third party.