Swiss banks are turning their back on blockchain related businesses even though several positive news surfaced recently from the country that has been labeled as the blockchain central of Europe. News included Switzerland’s Stock Exchange launching a Digital Asset trading app, FINMA revealing ICO guidelines and Zug piloting blockchain based voting to offer total transparency.

Even though Switzerland has been one of the hotbeds of Cryptocurrency start-ups, there is one thing in common for these businesses that they rely on to function and that is Banking. According to an article surfaced in Reuters out of the 250 banks that function in the country, only a handful of them were actually lending their hand to mostly ICO related startups that were legally doing business within it. Out of these handful banks only two are known publicly to allow these ventures to open bank accounts as just recently Zuercher Kantonalbank (ZKB), the fourth largest local bank, and another one that was not named turned their backs to those dealing with Digital Assets.

ZKB was the main reason that Switzerland started attracting these companies in the first place as they were influential enough to pressure other actors in the finance sector to accept these as valid players within the field.

The fact that its getting harder to move to Switzerland to do crypto related dealing will only lead the companies to relocate to countries that have been very welcoming recently: Gibraltar, Cayman Islands, Lichtenstein, Bermuda and Malta.

Luckily Zug’s authorities are seemingly stepping up to keep innovation within the country’s borders. Zug’s finance director, Heinz Taennler, stated that if the government doesn’t solve the banking problems of these businesses, they might just move towards the next possible solution.

“All their banking relationships are going to Liechtenstein,” Heinz Taennler stated. “These are hundreds of jobs that have been created, and every job is important.”

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) has also received several requests that asked central authorities to intervene, but even though they didn’t directly solve the issue, a consultation with Switzerland’s financial market supervisor also known as FINMA has been initiated.

According to a research made by PwC and the Crypto Valley Association, Switzerland dropped from second to sixth place regarding ICO funds raiser per country.