More than 85,000 merchants in Switzerland are now accepting crypto payments from their customers, powered by a partnership established by French payment services provider Worldline and crypto-focused financial services firm Bitcoin Suisse, paving the way for an increased crypto adoption in one of the world’s richest countries. Meanwhile, three businesses have partnered to offer tokenized assets on the Tezos (XTZ) blockchain to institutional clients.
The services, named WL Crypto Payments, allows merchants to accept bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) as payment used in point-of-sales and e-commerce through an app, Bitcoin Suisse said in a statement.
Merchants who take part in the program can download the WL Crypto Payments mobile app or install the Worldline payment plugin for their online stores. Clients who opt to pay with crypto may do so through their mobile crypto wallet apps, according to the statement.
Bitcoin Suisse says the crypto payments collaboration was first announced in November 2019, and its rollout to all Worldline merchants in the Swiss market was preceded by a pilot program.
“This is a historic milestone for crypto adoption in Switzerland and beyond. […] This step proves once again that Switzerland is a leader in collaborative innovation and a pioneer in the crypto and blockchain industry,” said Arthur Vayloyan, CEO of Bitcoin Suisse.
With a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of about USD 71,300 last year, Switzerland’s population was ranked as the third most affluent among the members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), preceded only by Ireland and Luxembourg, respectively.
The latest development comes as crypto trading business Crypto Finance, Swiss InCore Bank, and crypto IT firm Inacta have teamed up to offer tokenized assets on Tezos to institutional clients, Crypto Finance said in a statement.
At the same time, InCore Bank unveiled it will develop institutional-grade storage, staking, and trading services for Tezos, the native cryptocurrency of the Tezos blockchain.
”This work by Crypto Finance, InCore Bank, and Inacta is a tangible example of how FA2 [token standard] on Tezos broadens the potential for tokenisation significantly,” Stijn Vander Straeten, CEO of Storage Infrastructure with the Crypto Finance Group, was quoted as saying in a statement by Sobaco Group, InCore Bank’s parent company.
InCore Bank said it is Switzerland’s first business-to-business bank to offer staking services for the Tezos network, unlocking new yield earning products for its institutional customers.
The bank and Inacta are ”planning to launch a number of issuances on Tezos together with other participants in the ecosystem throughout the second half of 2021,” according to the statement.
At 11:41 UTC, the 45th coin by market capitalization, XTZ, is up 4.7% in a day and 16.4% in a week, now trading at USD 4.24. Overall, it’s up nearly 51% in a month. It hit its all-time high of USD 8.27 this May, dropping nearly 50% since, per CoinGecko.
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