SEBA Bank (now AMINA Bank): The Pioneer Swiss Crypto Bank
On 26 August 2019, Switzerland’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) granted banking and securities dealer licences to two newly formed institutions that had never before existed: SEBA Bank AG and Sygnum Bank AG. These twin approvals — granted on the same day to institutions with fundamentally different business models — marked a watershed moment in global financial regulation. For the first time, a national banking regulator in a major financial jurisdiction had granted full banking licences to institutions specifically designed to operate at the intersection of traditional banking and digital assets.
SEBA Bank, subsequently rebranded as AMINA Bank, was the first of these two institutions to become widely known internationally. Its founding story, its FINMA licence achievement, and its subsequent geographic expansion have made it a reference point in global discussions about regulated crypto banking.
Origins: A Banker’s Conviction
SEBA Bank was founded in 2018 by Guido Bühler, a former UBS and Deutsche Bank executive, alongside a group of technology and finance professionals who shared a conviction that institutional adoption of digital assets would require a regulated, full-service bank — not a technology company that approximated banking functions but could not offer the depositor protections, credit facilities, and regulatory assurances that institutional clients require.
The founding thesis was simple but commercially ambitious: large institutional investors — family offices, hedge funds, asset managers, pension funds — wanted exposure to digital assets but could not, as a matter of compliance and investment policy, use unregulated exchanges or custodians. The regulatory risk, counterparty risk, and operational risk of unregulated crypto custody was incompatible with the fiduciary obligations and investment guidelines of these institutions. A FINMA-regulated bank with full banking-grade infrastructure would remove these barriers and unlock significant institutional capital.
The application to FINMA was submitted in 2018. The regulatory review process was thorough and required SEBA to demonstrate capital adequacy, AML/KYC infrastructure, technology security, risk management frameworks, and governance structures consistent with a licensed bank — all applied to a business model that had no regulatory precedent.
The FINMA Licence: What It Means
A FINMA banking and securities dealer licence is not a fintech sandbox authorisation or a limited digital currency registration. It is a full banking licence — the same legal authorisation that UBS, Julius Baer, and Pictet hold. Institutions with FINMA banking licences are subject to Basel III capital requirements, FINMA’s supervisory audit regime, AML/KYC obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering Act, and the full suite of client protection requirements under Swiss banking law.
For AMINA Bank, this full licence has two critical commercial implications.
First, AMINA Bank can accept deposits. This means institutional clients can hold both fiat currency (CHF, EUR, USD) and digital assets (Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a growing range of approved cryptocurrencies) within the same regulated account structure, protected by Switzerland’s banking secrecy provisions and subject to FINMA’s depositor protection framework.
Second, AMINA Bank can custody both traditional and digital assets under a single regulatory umbrella. A family office that holds a portfolio of listed equities, bonds, and cryptocurrency positions can custody all these assets with AMINA Bank under a single relationship agreement, receiving consolidated reporting and access to credit facilities secured against the entire portfolio. This integrated custody capability — available from a single FINMA-regulated institution — is unavailable from traditional banks that lack crypto custody permissions and from crypto custodians that lack banking licences.
The 2023 Rebrand: From SEBA to AMINA
In 2023, SEBA Bank announced a rebranding to AMINA Bank — a name change driven by the institution’s geographic expansion into the Middle East and its ambition to be perceived as a global institution rather than a specifically Swiss or SEBA-named entity.
The rebrand to AMINA — a name chosen for its cross-cultural resonance, with Arabic and other linguistic roots — coincided with the bank’s receipt of a Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) licence in Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the international financial centre of the United Arab Emirates. The Abu Dhabi licence enables AMINA Bank to offer its digital asset services to institutional and high-net-worth clients in the Gulf Cooperation Council and broader Middle East market under local regulatory authorisation.
The timing of the rebrand and the Abu Dhabi expansion reflected a strategic calculation: the Middle East is home to a rapidly growing concentration of UHNW clients and sovereign wealth vehicles with significant interest in digital assets. GCC sovereign and family wealth allocations to alternative assets — including digital assets — have grown materially since 2021, and Abu Dhabi has established itself as one of the most active and receptive financial regulatory jurisdictions for crypto and digital asset businesses.
Service Offering: The Integrated Digital Asset Bank
AMINA Bank’s service offering is structured around the convergence of traditional private banking and digital asset services. The bank does not position itself as a “crypto exchange” — a consumer-facing trading platform — but as an institutional-grade bank that treats digital assets as a regulated asset class alongside equities, bonds, and structured products.
Custody: AMINA Bank provides institutional custody for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a range of approved digital assets using hardware security module (HSM) infrastructure and multi-signature protocols consistent with banking-grade security standards. The custody offering is the foundational service on which other products are built.
Trading and brokerage: The bank offers OTC spot trading in major digital assets, with liquidity sourced from institutional market makers. Clients can execute large trades — typically above USD 100,000 notional — with pricing and settlement comparable to institutional OTC markets rather than retail exchange interfaces.
Fiat and crypto banking: AMINA Bank operates payment accounts in CHF, EUR, and USD, enabling seamless conversion between fiat and digital assets and facilitating cross-border transactions that combine traditional wire transfer infrastructure with blockchain settlement.
Investment products: The bank structures and distributes investment products linked to digital assets for its institutional and HNW client base. These include structured notes with capital protection features (providing digital asset exposure with defined downside limits), actively managed crypto certificates, and index-linked products replicating the performance of diversified digital asset baskets.
Yield and staking products: AMINA Bank offers income-generating products built on Proof of Stake blockchain mechanisms, enabling institutional clients to earn yield on digital asset holdings through validators operated by or through the bank’s infrastructure. These products are offered within FINMA’s regulatory framework for digital asset lending and yield generation.
Credit against digital assets: Institutional clients can obtain CHF and USD credit facilities secured against their digital asset holdings, enabling liquidity access without liquidating positions — a service analogous to traditional Lombard lending but applied to the digital asset portfolio.
Institutional Client Base
AMINA Bank’s institutional client orientation distinguishes it from consumer-facing crypto platforms. The bank serves:
Family offices: Single and multi-family offices representing UHNW principals who wish to integrate digital asset exposure into a formally managed investment framework with institutional custody, reporting, and risk management.
Asset managers: Fund managers and discretionary portfolio managers seeking regulated access to digital asset markets on behalf of their underlying investors.
Banks and financial intermediaries: Traditional financial institutions that wish to offer digital asset services to their clients but lack the technology and regulatory infrastructure to do so independently. AMINA Bank has developed a B2B offering that enables partner institutions to white-label certain digital asset services through the bank’s infrastructure.
High-net-worth individuals: Sophisticated individual clients with significant digital asset holdings who prefer the regulatory protection and institutional infrastructure of a FINMA bank over self-custody or exchange custody arrangements.
Geographic Expansion: Abu Dhabi and Beyond
Following the Abu Dhabi FSRA licence, AMINA Bank has developed a multi-jurisdictional regulatory footprint consistent with its global institutional ambitions.
Hong Kong: AMINA Bank has established a presence in Hong Kong, accessing one of the world’s most significant digital asset markets and positioning for growth in the Chinese-heritage UHNW segment that is active across Hong Kong and Singapore.
Switzerland: The FINMA licence remains the anchor of the bank’s institutional credibility and the foundation for its other regulatory relationships globally.
The geographic expansion strategy reflects a deliberate decision to be present in the jurisdictions where institutional digital asset adoption is most advanced — Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, Switzerland — and where regulatory frameworks provide the clarity required for banking licence applications and supervised operations.
Funding History and Investors
AMINA Bank has raised approximately CHF 110 million across multiple funding rounds since its 2018 founding. Key investors include a combination of strategic and financial investors.
Abu Dhabi-based strategic investors participated in the 2023 growth round — both reflecting their support for the bank’s Middle East expansion ambitions and providing distribution network connections in the GCC market. Earlier funding rounds included participation from family offices, Zug-based blockchain ecosystem investors, and a small number of European technology-focused venture capital funds.
The bank’s funding trajectory — raising primarily from private and strategic investors rather than public markets — is consistent with its institutional positioning. A FINMA-licensed bank seeking institutional client relationships benefits from investor relationships that reflect stability and long-term commitment rather than the shorter-term capital dynamics of venture capital.
The Significance of FINMA-Licensed Crypto Banking
AMINA Bank’s FINMA licence — and the existence of Sygnum Bank’s licence alongside it — has had consequences that extend well beyond the two institutions themselves.
The FINMA crypto banking licences demonstrated to the global financial regulatory community that a rigorous, mainstream regulatory authority could evaluate, approve, and supervise banks operating with digital assets as core business activities. This demonstration effect influenced regulatory conversations in the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, and the United States — each of which has subsequently moved toward more defined frameworks for crypto banking.
For institutional investors who were considering digital asset allocation in 2019, the FINMA approval removed a critical objection: that there was no regulated institutional banking infrastructure through which to access digital asset markets safely. The existence of AMINA Bank and Sygnum Bank — full FINMA banks, not quasi-banking crypto services — has materially advanced institutional adoption of digital assets in Switzerland and in the international markets these institutions serve.
Outlook: Consolidation and Institutional Growth
AMINA Bank’s strategic outlook for 2025-2027 centres on three themes: deepening institutional relationships in existing markets, expanding regulated access in new jurisdictions, and broadening the product suite for institutional clients.
The bank’s profitability trajectory has improved materially since the 2021-2022 crypto market correction, which tested the viability of crypto banking business models. The sustained recovery of digital asset valuations since late 2023, combined with growing institutional adoption driven by the approval of Bitcoin spot ETFs in the United States and the EU’s MiCA regulatory framework, has created favourable market conditions for a regulated, institutional-grade crypto bank.
The competitive landscape is evolving. Traditional banks — including several Swiss institutions — have begun developing digital asset custody and trading capabilities, though none yet operates a business model as deeply integrated with digital assets as AMINA Bank. Crypto-native custodians such as Anchorage, BitGo, and Coinbase Institutional are expanding toward institutional banking services. AMINA Bank’s FINMA-regulated status and full banking licence remain the most defensible competitive differentiator in this increasingly contested institutional digital asset market.
Donovan Vanderbilt is a contributing editor at ZUG FINANCE, a publication of The Vanderbilt Portfolio AG, Zurich. The information presented is for educational purposes and does not constitute investment advice.