Colombians may soon have the opportunity to acquire cryptos like BTC and ETH directly from their bank accounts, as part of the country’s new regulatory sandbox.
The new regulatory sandbox seems to show results steadily as an increased number of banking institutions have decided to provide crypto services to their clients via partnerships with important crypto companies.
The largest bank in the country, Bancolombia, will offer the chance to buy crypto beginning December 14th, as a result of a collaboration with crypto exchange Gemini.
A select number of clients of the bank will have the opportunity to buy Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Ethereum from their very own accounts during the pilot that is scheduled to last one year. The Financial Superintendence of Colombia will be in charge of supervising the program.
Bancolombia will offer clients fiat funds and Gemini will handle the infrastructure for the exchange and custody of crypto which will include deposits, holding, or withdrawals.
Cynthia Del Pozo, in charge of principal, strategy, and corporate development at Gemini, stated:
“The partnership also serves as an important step toward the strategic expansion of Gemini’s presence in Latin America. We look forward to working closely with the Colombian crypto ecosystem and to supporting crypto products that empower Colombians to take control of their financial lives.”
This regulatory sandbox of Colombia stands out for being unique in Latin America. Work on it began in April of this year.
There were nine projects that received approval but only one has managed to move further than the planning phase. That project is the MOVii-Bitpoint initiative which integrates both platforms so that clients have the chance to acquire crypto on Bitpoint through their MOVii fiat accounts.
This collaboration between Bancolombia and Gemini would become only the second of the nine to make progress but it would be the first one to associate itself with an important crypto exchange. Other big exchanges, like Bitso or Binance, are involved with other projects, but no progress has been made in those cases outside the initial design phase.
The MOVii and Bitpoint collaboration has already reached 2,000 active users and recorded $500 million in funds moved via crypto since November. Hernando Rubio, the CEO of MOVii, declared some time ago that the startup wants to integrate with the Latin American crypto exchange Ripio in order to grow its customer base and the number of services and features available.