Global Head Of HSBC Digital Says That The Bank Is ‘Cautiously Looking’ At Crypto Investments

The Global Head of Digital at the prestigious bank HSBC, Josh Bottomley, was recently a guest in an interview with Forbes, where he said that the bank is currently “cautiously looking” at cryptocurrency use cases.

In the interview with Forbes, Bottomley was asked about the bank’s approach to crypto. This is when he said that HSBC is “cautiously looking into this area [cryptocurrencies]” and further explained that “there’s a use case when you have a token or currency that’s actually useful for a particular purpose, and it serves that need. But that is very different from if it’s pure speculation.”

Bottomley also added that HSBC is right now “not interested in that at all” and said that the bank “doesn’t believe broadly” in cryptocurrencies as a genuine investment asset. However, he remained optimistic about the future, stating:

“One of the criteria we use is if an asset class is showing incredible volatility up and down. For the vast majority of our customers, that makes it an inappropriate saving or investment vehicle.”

Another HSBC spokesperson recently told Forbes that the bank “does not trade cryptocurrencies nor do we process payments denominated in virtual or cryptocurrencies.”

Still, what’s interesting is that HSBC has been testing the underlying technology of crypto – the blockchain – through a variety of applications. One of them was the first live operations through blockchain via the platform we.trade, of which HSBC is a founding member.

Additionally, in August 2017, the bank joined a project called Utility Settlement Coin (USC) which intends to facilitate the issuance of currencies by central banks by using blockchain technology.