By Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi

ZURICH, July 21 (Reuters) – Digital wealth management start-up Flynt has received a banking licence from Swiss finance watchdog FINMA, it said on Friday, representing a first for a Swiss financial technology business.

The software group’s announcement comes on the heels of Swiss private bank Falcon receiving regulatory approval to allow clients to store and trade the virtual currency bitcoin, and marks a further technology inroad in the traditional banking hub which is keen to establish a strong fintech industry.

Founded by the chief executive of derivatives specialist Leonteq and lonteqq based in Switzerland’s ‘Crypto Valley’, Flynt aims to offer wealthy clients a platform from which to manage their asset portfolios, from bank accounts to real estate.

“The banking licence allows Flynt the required independence to approach wealth management in new ways and using innovative technologies, thus enabling private and institutional clients, such as entrepreneurs and family offices, to independently control their total wealth at all times,” the group said in a statement.

Flynt currently employs 43 people.

The Commercial Registry of the Canton of Zug confirmed Flynt’s registration as a bank and said the information would be published in two to three working days.

In recent years, a variety of fintech players have received European banking licences.For many of them this has been because they want to lower the transaction fees they pay to banks, rather than to move into universal banking services themselves. (Reporting by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi and Oliver Hirt; Editing by Mark Potter)