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PostFinance, which serves around 2.7 million customers across Switzerland, says it will allow people to stake starting from just 0.1 Ether.
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PostFinance, a crypto-friendly retail bank fully owned by the Swiss government, is offering Ether staking to its 2.7 million customers, who make up roughly a quarter of the Swiss population.
In a Jan. 16 blog post, the bank said the service would offer investments using Ether (ETH) for a fixed minimum term of twelve weeks, with the opportunity to sell the credited staking rewards.
It comes as other traditional banks move into the crypto space. In December, Anchorage Digital became the first US federally chartered bank to support liquid Ether staking.
A minimum of 32 Ether is generally required to stake, worth roughly $106,000, according to CoinGecko. PostFinance says it will allow people to stake using 0.1 Ether, worth roughly $331.
Source: PostFinance
In a statement, Alexander Thoma, head of digital assets at PostFinance, said the bank’s staking service will be based on native staking directly on the Ethereum blockchain.
“The staking service is completely integrated into PostFinance’s existing services,” he said.
“This means that customers can see their staking rewards directly in their asset statement, together with their other crypto assets,” Thoma added.
In the Q&A section about PostFinance’s staking service, only Ether is currently offered, but the bank says it plans to “offer other coins in due course.”
According to the Beacon Chain, the amount of staked Ether has been growing yearly, with over 33 million currently staked, compared to 682,00 recorded on Dec. 1, 2020.
The amount of staked Ether has grown yearly since the Beacon Chain was launched in December 2020. Source: Beacon Chain
The Dune Analytics dashboard shows that Liquid staking protocol Lido Finance has the largest market share for Ether staking at 28%, while crypto exchange Coinbase has the second largest share at 9.5%.
Founded in 1906, PostFinance is the financial services unit of Swiss Post, Switzerland’s national postal service.
According to the nonprofit organization Swiss Sustainable Finance (SSF), the bank has around $136 billion (124 billion Swiss francs) under management.
Related: Regulatory clarity key for banks entering crypto, industry exec says
This isn’t PostFinance’s first foray into crypto. In April 2023, in collaboration with digital asset banking group Sygnum, the bank announced plans to offer crypto trading and custody services. The service went live this past February.
Earlier, in 2022, it began building a crypto custody platform. The year before, it started issuing digital collectibles linked to physical stamps.
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This article first appeared at Cointelegraph.com News
