Swissquote

Is Swissquote safe for crypto?

Yes, for buying and holding mainstream coins, Swissquote is one of the lower-risk places to keep crypto with a company. Swissquote is a Swiss bank supervised by FINMA, its parent is listed on the SIX exchange and publishes audited accounts, and its crypto is set up as a custody asset that stays with you if the bank fails. We score it 89/100, above Kraken and Bitstamp.

The common misunderstanding is deposit insuranceDeposit insuranceA government-backed scheme that repays bank customers up to a set limit if their bank fails, such as the FDIC in the US or the FSCS in the UK.More in the glossary. Swiss deposit protection covers your cash, not your coins.

Deposit protection covers cash, not crypto

Every bank with a Swiss branch belongs to esisuisse, which protects client deposits up to CHF 100,000 per client per bank if the bank goes bust. That money is a deposit: the bank owes it to you and has used it in its own business. Crypto works differently.

Under the Swiss Banking Act as changed by the 2021 DLT law, crypto-based assets count as custody assets, like shares in a securities account, as long as two conditions are met. The bank must keep them ready for the client at all times, and they must be held either in an individual wallet for that client or in a pooled wallet where each client's share is clear. If both hold, the coins are separated from the bankrupt estate and returned to clients rather than used to pay the bank's creditors.

FINMA spelled this out in Guidance 01/2026 in January 2026. It also said banks that hand custody to a foreign provider may only do so if that provider is supervised and foreign law gives the same bankruptcy protection. Swissquote describes its own setup as "full segregation of your digital assets under Swiss federal law", with a mix of hot and cold walletsCold storageKeeping crypto keys on a device or medium that is not connected to the internet, which protects them from most online attacks.More in the glossary.

So the protection is real but of a different kind: no payout from a fund, and no cap at CHF 100,000, but you depend on the bank's records being correct and on the liquidator handing assets back, which takes time.

Accounts and capital

This is where a bank beats an exchange. Swissquote Group reported 2025 operating income of CHF 724.2 million, net profit of CHF 366.4 million and equity of CHF 1.40 billion. Its capital ratio was 25.0%, up from 23.5% a year earlier, far above the regulatory minimum. Clients held CHF 88.7 billion with the group.

There is no crypto proof of reservesProof of reservesA report in which a crypto exchange shows that it holds enough coins to cover all customer balances, ideally checked by an outside firm.More in the glossary with a Merkle-treeMerkle treeA way to combine many records into one short code, so that each person can check their own record is included without seeing anyone else's.More in the glossary check, as Kraken or Bitvavo publish. For a supervised bank with audited accounts, we treat that as a smaller gap than it would be at a private exchange.

Licences

Entity	Regulator	Crypto services
Swissquote Bank Ltd, Gland	FINMA (bank licence)	Trading and custody for Swiss and international clients
Swissquote Bank Europe SA, Luxembourg	CSSF, MiCAMiCAThe EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, which requires crypto exchanges and other providers to be licensed and supervised.More in the glossary licence 24 April 2026	Custody, order execution, transfers across the EEA
Swissquote Ltd, London	FCA	Investment services

A bank licence is stricter than any crypto licence: it comes with capital, liquidity and audit rules for the whole firm. What Swissquote lacks is a US licence. Its EU crypto licence is narrower than those of Bitpanda or Bitvavo, as it covers custody, execution and transfers rather than running an exchange.

What to watch

Swissquote's crypto income has been volatile. It earned about CHF 85.7 million from crypto in 2025, and reports on its first half of 2026 showed a fall of about two-thirds. That is a business issue for the bank rather than a risk to custody assets, since crypto is a small part of a profitable group.

The bigger risk for customers is fraud. Fake Swissquote websites and apps, and calls from people posing as Swissquote staff, are the way people lose money here, not a hack of the bank.

How to use it safely

1. Open Swissquote only from a bookmark or the official app, never from an ad or a link in a message.
2. Use the strongest login protection the app offers and never approve a login or payment request you did not start.
3. Before sending crypto in, check that it comes from a wallet you control. Swissquote rejects transfers from other exchanges, and the funds can take time and fees to recover.
4. Remember that your cash balance and your coins are protected under different rules, and that spreads and fees are higher than at a pure exchange.

How we scored it

Security history (90), reserves (90) and custody (88) are all strong: no hack, audited bank accounts, and clear bankruptcy segregation under Swiss law. Licensing (86) is the weakest, mainly because Swissquote has no US licence and its MiCAMiCAThe EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, which requires crypto exchanges and other providers to be licensed and supervised.More in the glossary permission is narrow. The score measures where your coins are held, not whether any coin is a good investment.