Deutsche Bank (ETR:DBKGn), Germany's largest lender, has partnered with Swiss crypto infrastructure firm Taurus to manage cryptocurrencies, tokenized assets, and digital currencies for its institutional clients. The collaboration was announced on Thursday, September 14, 2023.
The partnership will allow Deutsche Bank to hold a limited number of cryptocurrencies for its clients, as well as tokenized versions of traditional financial assets. However, the bank clarified that crypto trading is not in its immediate plans.
In June, Deutsche Bank had applied for a crypto custody license from Germany's financial watchdog, BaFin. This move was a part of the bank's broader ambition to expand into the digital asset sector, which was first made public in early 2021 when details about a digital asset custody prototype appeared in a report by the World Economic Forum.
As part of the collaboration with Taurus, Deutsche Bank will integrate the Swiss company's technology to establish digital asset custody and tokenization services. Taurus, which was founded in 2018, provides enterprise-grade digital asset infrastructure to issue, custody, and trade digital assets such as cryptocurrencies, tokenized assets, NFTs, and digital currencies.
Paul Maley, global head of securities services at Deutsche Bank said on Thursday that the digital asset space is expected to encompass trillions of dollars of assets. "As such, custodians must start adapting to support their clients," he explained. "This is why we are excited to partner with Taurus, a leading digital asset infrastructure provider with a proven track record and extensive expertise in the crypto and tokenization space.”
Earlier this year in February, Deutsche Bank had participated in a $65 million Series B funding round for Taurus. Other participants included Credit Suisse (SIX:CSGN) Pictet group and Arab Bank Switzerland. The process of due diligence of prospective crypto custody firms by Deutsche Bank started at the end of 2021 and concluded sometime in 2022.
Lamine Brahimi, co-founder of Taurus, highlighted the broad scope of the partnership. “The partnership focuses on cryptocurrencies, but we are well known for going beyond cryptocurrencies. So, where it sees fit, the bank will be able to tokenize assets and provide asset servicing,” he said in an interview with CoinDesk.
While the bank is proceeding cautiously and in line with regulations, Maley emphasized that their product design and custody nature will ensure there isn't a risk of contaminating the bank's other activities.
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