This article is from cointelegraph.com.br and the original article can be read here in Portuguese
Itau bank, one of the main banks in Brazil, and which was once a staunch critic of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, having argued in the past that BTC served as a money laundering vehicle, is now “in love” with Bitcoin and stated that it intends to sell cryptocurrencies directly to its customers.
The statement was made by the new head of Itaú Private Banking, Fernando Beyruti, in an interview for Forbes.
“What brought us here won’t take us from here on out”, said Fernando Beyruti.
Although Beyruti did not provide details about the bank’s plans, he said that the institution’s intention is to expand the sale, to customers, of products related to the cryptocurrency market and that currently only assets such as ETFs and crypto investment funds do not meet customer demand.
However, according to him, the proposal is currently under research, but the intention is to offer more cryptocurrency products through integration with other companies.
“Because the market players are already prepared to meet the banks with these new demands”, he said.
Recently, the bank also started to exclusively distribute an investment fund managed by Hashdex, the Hashdex Crypto Selection FIC FIM which was the first digital asset fund distributed by Itaú bank, and has exclusivity in the offer for the first three months.
“This announcement demonstrates that we are attentive to the main market trends and to promote the sophistication of our clients’ investment portfolio. We already offered products on our shelf that access the areas of cryptoassets and blockchain, and the possibility of this partnership to make the Hashdex Crypto Selection fund available complements the offer at the moment”, says Claudio Sanches, director of investment and pension products at Itaú Unibanco
From hate to love
Itaú bank is one of the great banks in the country that went from hating Bitcoin to loving cryptocurrency. In the past, the bank has said that cryptocurrencies are used for money laundering and that it had no interest in having any relationship with cryptocurrencies.
“Itau understands that virtual currencies that can be exchanged for real money or other virtual currencies are potentially vulnerable to money laundering and terrorist financing,” the Bank told the Administrative Council for Economic Defense, CADE, when stating that it did not want to serve companies in connection with Bitcoin.
The banks BTG Pactual, Plural and Rendimento are the ‘early adopters’, among financial institutions, with regard to the cryptocurrency industry in Brazil. In the case of BTG, the institution works with its own token, the reitz, backed by real estate, since 2018 and, after being released to the public, the bank has already paid two rounds of income to token holders.
Recently, BTG was also the first bank in Brazil to offer cryptocurrency exposure to customers. In addition, the bank bought Exame magazine and, as one of the first actions, established the “Future of Money” portal, which is focused on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Plural, on the other hand, was the first financial institution to ‘open the doors’ to cryptocurrency companies in Brazil if connect to the financial system via API.
The bank was also the first to buy participation in a cryptocurrency company by recently investing in Mercado Bitcoin, one of the institution’s main clients that may be sold to Coinbase.
Rendimento was the first major bank in Brazil to announce an integration with Ripple in a system of financial remittances using RippleNet. After Rendimento, Ripple also announced partnerships with Itaú and Bradesco.