Deutsche Bank Plans to Offer Crypto Custody, Trading

The largest German lender, Deutsche Bank, is planning to start offering digital currency custody services, along with other crypto-specific services for institutional investors, becoming one of the many banks to jump into cryptocurrency recently.

The bank disclosed its intentions to offer institutional crypto services in a report published by the World Economic Forum in December, however, it was overlooked by most.

Banks Entering Crypto

Deutsche Bank’s services were listed along with some of the major crypto service providers like Bitgo, Gemini, Metamask and several others.

Apart from the German bank, many other global lending giants are diving into crypto one way or the other. Last December, Singapore’s DBS launched similar crypto custodian and exchange services for institutions. Most recently, BNY Mellon revealed its intentions to offer digital asset-based services to its asset management clients.

Deutsche Bank’s digital asset services are still a prototype, and there is no deadline publically announced by the bank for the launch.

“Deutsche Bank aims to develop a fully integrated custody platform for institutional clients and their digital assets providing seamless connectivity to the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem,” the report explained.

Though the German bank is initiating the crypto services by only offering custody, it has plans to introduce Tokenization Tokenization Tokenization represents the process of substituting a sensitive data element with a non-sensitive equivalent, i.e. token, which bears no extrinsic or exploitable meaning or value. In essence, the rights to the ownership of an asset are converted into a digital token. Tokenization can be used to own an entire unit of an asset. For example, one token that represents the ownership of a piece of real estate or to split ownership of a single unity of an asset such as 200,000 tokens, each one represen Tokenization represents the process of substituting a sensitive data element with a non-sensitive equivalent, i.e. token, which bears no extrinsic or exploitable meaning or value. In essence, the rights to the ownership of an asset are converted into a digital token. Tokenization can be used to own an entire unit of an asset. For example, one token that represents the ownership of a piece of real estate or to split ownership of a single unity of an asset such as 200,000 tokens, each one represen Read this Term and trading as well. The bank detailed that it will partner with prime brokerages, issuers and vetted exchanges for offering trading services to its institutional clients.

Additionally, it will introduce value-added services like “taxation, valuation services and fund administration, lending, Staking Staking Staking is defined as the process of holding funds in a cryptocurrency wallet to support the operations of a blockchain network. In particular, staking represents a bid to secure a volume of crypto to receive rewards. In most case however, this process relies on users participating in blockchain-related activities via a personal crypto wallet.The concept of staking is also closely tied to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS). PoS is a type of consensus algorithm in which a blockchain network aims to achieve Staking is defined as the process of holding funds in a cryptocurrency wallet to support the operations of a blockchain network. In particular, staking represents a bid to secure a volume of crypto to receive rewards. In most case however, this process relies on users participating in blockchain-related activities via a personal crypto wallet.The concept of staking is also closely tied to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS). PoS is a type of consensus algorithm in which a blockchain network aims to achieve Read this Term and voting, and provide an open-banking platform to allow onboarding of third-party providers.”

“The platform will be embedded with a full suite of regulated banking services, including KYC/AML, compliance, settlement and more,” the report explained. “Deutsche Bank will help users to focus on what’s important – their investment decisions. This platform will focus on simplifying the customer experience and design implementation as a means of creating a differentiated product.”