The San Juan Mercantile Bank & Trust International (SJMBT) announced today that it has received its first client deposit and commenced operations, following the bank’s receipt last month of its license to operate from Puerto Rico’s Office of the Commission of Financial Institutions (OCIF). SJMBT offers fiat and digital asset custody and settlement services, and it is expected to be integrated with the trading platforms offered by its affiliate, the San Juan Mercantile Exchange (SJMX).  Together, SJMX and SJMBT will provide an integrated end-to-end solution for institutional customers seeking a familiar, efficient and secure way to trade digital currencies. 

SJMBT’s launch makes it one of the first institutions of its kind to give customers the ability to hold and manage both fiat currency and digital assets on a single integrated platform.  Deposits of fiat currency are held by SJMBT on behalf of its clients with its regulated correspondent banks, and digital assets are held by approved digital asset custodians. Partnering with multiple custodians is intended to reduce costs and improve security. Based on the integration between SJMBT and the trading platforms of SJMX, customer balances on deposit with SJMBT will inform real-time trading limits at SJMX, enabling SJMBT to settle all trades routed through SJMBT on a real-time basis. 

Nick Varelakis, President and COO of SJMBT, said: “Commencing SJMBT banking operations is a significant milestone.  Institutional market participants in the digital asset space now have access to a licensed, fully regulated and operational banking partner that provides a secure environment for the matching and settlement of digital asset trades.  As more liquidity venues onboard with SJMX to trade digital assets, SJMBT will provide critical services, such as real-time settlement and account re-balancing, in support of our customers’ trading activities.”

With the new customers onboarded at SJMBT, SJMX is able to launch exchange operations, via the SJMX Dark Pool platform and through SJMX Blocks, its over-the-counter (OTC) trading venue.  SJMX plans to also launch a central limit order book (CLOB) trading platform, leveraging the global distribution capabilities of CQG.