- Deutsche Bank collaborates with Swiss fintech firm Taurus to launch digital asset custody and tokenization services, aiming to bring more traditional assets “on-chain.”
- The partnership leverages Taurus’ infrastructure to cater to rising institutional interest in crypto, even amid broader market challenges.
- Deutsche Bank advances cautiously with the new crypto services, aligning with regulations to avoid “contaminating the bank’s other activities.”
Deutsche Bank and Taurus are joining forces to develop enterprise-grade crypto services, which will predominantly focus on offering digital asset custody and tokenization services. The collaboration is a response to growing institutional interest in digital assets, which many industry experts predict will play a dominant role in the future economy. This alliance leverages Taurus’ expertise in crafting secure and reliable crypto infrastructure to create a robust platform that can handle traditional assets and cash payments.
Paul Maley, Global Head of Securities for Deutsche Bank, envisages a future where the tokenized economy undergoes exponential growth. The initiative aims to adapt and evolve, ensuring seamless service delivery in a market expected to encompass trillions of dollars of assets in the forthcoming years.
As Lamine Brahimi, managing partner and co-founder of Taurus, accentuates, this agreement significantly contributes to fostering trust in the crypto markets, a sector that has recently faced skepticism due to the downfall of key players like FTX. The collaboration not only enhances the reliability of the crypto space but heralds a future where digital assets will become a norm rather than an exception.
Strategic Investments and Regulatory Movements
The German financial behemoth has been nurturing its crypto custody ambitions, manifest with its efforts directed towards acquiring a crypto custody license from the German financial authority, BaFin. This process was initiated considering the transparent regulatory landscape emerging in Europe and Asia, providing clarity for market participants in these regions.
In addition to this regulatory stride, Deutsche Bank reinforced its commitment to this venture by investing in Taurus earlier this year, a strategic move in a $65 million Series B funding round which also saw participation from other bigwigs like Credit Suisse and Arab Bank Switzerland.
Cultivating Institutional Interest in Crypto
Despite the volatility and the high-profile company collapses witnessed in the crypto market, this partnership signifies the unyielding interest and the substantial investments being poured into building crypto systems globally. Institutions are progressively acknowledging the potential of blockchain technology, not just in the crypto domain but extending to the traditional financial assets arena as well.
Paul Maley emphasizes that their endeavor is not confined to cryptocurrencies but extends to nurturing the overall digital assets ecosystem, a vision echoed by Brahimi who sees this partnership as a golden opportunity to facilitate the launch of DLT-based products and services globally.
Moreover, the collaborative venture is designed to cater to a wide variety of digital assets, initially focusing on selected cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, eyeing a broader spectrum of tokenized financial assets as they foresee a surge in activities revolving around these.
