SBI Digital Assets Holdings and the Swiss Stock Exchange (SIX) are planning to launch an exchange for cryptocurrencies in Singapore that will start operation by 2022 at the latest.

The exchange is subject to regulatory approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, according to a statement.

The idea here to “disrupt ourselves,” said Fernando Vazquez Cao, chief executive of SBI Digital Asset Holdings.

The joint venture’s exchange and CSD platforms are expected to be fully regulated by the law and have a presence in Japan and Switzerland with other partnerships to follow.

“Our reach as soon as go live will be across the whole of Southeast Asia, and we expect to have market participants from across the region as soon as we launch,” said Tim Grant, head of SDX. Adding,

“The real play is global liquidity. That’s what the institutional market wants. It doesn’t want to trade 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in its own market then go to the next and the next.”

SBI and SDX have some big plans for their new operation that includes offering equity, both private placements and listed shares, debt instruments, fund structures, and structured products. They would further be looking at “non-bankable” assets like art and real estate, Grant said.

In a separate announcement on Monday, SIX Digital exchange introduced a venture in collaboration with Sygnum Bank and Swisscom that will enable Swiss banks to offer its customers access to digital assets through an institutional digital asset gateway.

This initial joint service is based on the Custodigit platform, which is already available — a joint venture created by Swisscom and Sygnum in 2018 in which SIX acquired a major stake — and is planned to start in the first quarter of next year with “significant capabilities” to be added throughout the year.

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