Société Générale’s Crypto Division Lands Regulatory Approval in France

According to records held by the French financial regulator l'Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), the bank’s crypto subsidiary SG Forge was registered at the end of September for three activities related to trading cryptocurrencies.

Providers must register with the AMF in France before they can offer services such as custody of crypto or operating a trading platform.

SG Forge’s registration covers the custody, purchase, sale, and exchange of digital assets. It has yet to register for operating a trading platform.

Société Générale, which is France’s third-largest lender by market cap, had not responded to a request for comment from Decrypt at the time of publication.

SG Forge began in 2018 as one of 60 internal startups created within Société Générale. It has since taken the lead on the bank’s blockchain projects, partnering with both Tezos and ConsenSys for its experiments with creating a French central bank digital currency (CBDC).

More recently, SG Forge announced a partnership with Swiss custody specialist Metaco to focus on growing its security tokens offering. SG Forge was an architect of the European Investment Bank’s €100 million ($97.5 million) digital bond issued in 2021.

By adding its name to the list of digital asset providers in France, SG Forge joins the likes of Binance, Bitpanda, and Crypto.com.

Industry figures have praised France’s “pro-crypto” approach, which has seen Paris become a hub for blockchain businesses in Europe. Both Binance and Crypto.com have invested heavily in the capital.

Société Générale, which is over 150 years old, is not the only traditional French bank to be involved in the sector.

In July, the country’s largest banking group BNP Paribas also announced its own partnership with Metaco to integrate the latter’s Harmonize platform into its own infrastructure.