Garanti BBVA Kripto Launches Crypto Asset Trading Platform

Garanti BBVA Kripto enhanced the performance and security of its cryptocurrency asset trading platform by collaborating with Ripple and IBM.

Following a pilot program in 2023, the company is debuting the platform for its entire customer base, according to a Wednesday (Oct. 23) press release.

“We will continue to scale by increasing our asset diversity and developing our service infrastructure,” Korcan Abali, CEO and member of the board at Garanti BBVA Kripto, said in the release. “Our collaboration with Ripple and IBM gives us the confidence of institutional-grade custody infrastructure, which offers safety, robust governance and compliant processes.”

Launched in response to customers’ growing interest in digital assets, Garanti BBVA Digital Assets provides services for several such assets and reports that the demand for transferring and storing crypto assets is growing daily, according to the release.

Garanti BBVA Kripto’s crypto asset trading platform currently serves 14,000 users, the release said.

The company used a combined solution from Ripple Custody and IBM to build, deploy and manage institutional-grade key management infrastructure that protects private keys, applications and data, per the release. The solution features data encryption, isolation of customer environments, embedded hardware security modules, and a governance framework that removes single points of compromise.

“IBM’s infrastructure capabilities in IBM LinuxONE will provide Garanti BBVA Kripto with a high level of security standards in a sustainable environment leveraging IBM’s expertise in the digital asset custody domain,” IBM Turkey General Manager Işil Kilinç Gürtuna said in the release.

Aaron Sears, senior vice president of global customer and partner success at Ripple, said in the release: “Secure custody is foundational to unlocking value and addressing the growing demand for new asset classes across the digital economy. We remain committed to supporting our customers around the world to power the digital asset market with our secure and compliant services.”

Ripple said Oct. 10 that it introduced new features and functionalities for its custody solution, including a transaction screening service integration, added hardware security module options, an XRPL integration for tokenizing real-world assets, pre-configured policy frameworks, and upgrades to the platform’s usability and user interface.