Germany's DZ Bank Launches Blockchain-Based Digital Assets Custody Platform đ
DZ Bank, Germany's third-largest bank, has launched its own blockchain-powered digital asset custody platform.
The platform, aimed at institutional clients, would give them access to crypto products such as Siemens' crypto bond. DZ Bank, which purchased a crypto bond from Siemens six months ago, has indicated interest in distributed ledger technology (DLT) and its potential influence on the capital market.
According to Holger Meffert, DZ Bank's head of securities services and digital custody, a major amount of capital market business will be processed by DLT-based infrastructures during the next decade. The bank plans to position DLT as an additional technology to existing capital market operations.
In the future, DZ Bank intends to provide institutional investors and private clients the possibility to purchase cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC). To do this, the bank applied to the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) in June 2023 for a crypto custody license.
Despite the country's rigorous regulatory environment, DZ Bank's action underscores a growing trend of German institutions embracing cryptocurrency.
Other financial institutions, such as Deutsche WertpapierServiceBank and DWS, have also taken steps to give investors access to the digital asset industry and to develop blockchain-related solutions. Traditional banks seeking crypto custody licenses from BaFin include Commerzbank and DekaBank.
This comes as the new framework developed to standardize the regulation of crypto-asset markets within the European Union, Markets in Cryptoassets (MiCA), is set to take effect in 2024.
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