Key takeaways:
- Argentina-based private banks Banco Galicia and Burbank have started offering cryptocurrency trading services
- Both banks provide access to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USD Coin
- The rollout of new trading features comes amidst high inflation in the country and a growing rate of crypto users
Two Argentina-based private banks introduce crypto trading features
Banco Galicia, one of Argentina’s largest private banks announced on Monday the rollout of cryptocurrency trading functionality that will allow its 4.2 million clients to buy, sell, and store Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and USD Coin.
In a Tweet posted yesterday, the bank shared screenshots showing the newly-launched feature.
On the same day, Burbank, a digital bank launched in 2017, announced it is also adding cryptocurrency trading features. The bank currently supports virtually the same selection of coins as the Buenos-Aires-based Banco Galicia, apart from offering Multi-Collateral Dai stablecoin instead of XRP.
The addition of cryptocurrency trading functionality by the two popular Argentinian banks comes at a time when the country’s local currency Argentine Peso is suffering from a high degree of inflation. The South American country has been caught in a vicious cycle of a double-digit inflation rate for the better part of the past decade.
Argentina’s inflation rate over the past five years. Source: tradingeconomics.com
According to a Yahoo report published last year, the country’s economic downturn has acted as a catalyst for crypto adoption. Between 2020 and 2021, the number of cryptocurrency investment accounts in Argentina has increased by 10-fold, according to digital asset exchange Binance.
