Deutsche Bank has made a digital-asset custody service available to Corporate Bank customers in Germany, giving companies and institutions a way to hold and transfer selected tokens through the lender.
Deutsche Bank said the service had gone live for paying clients, Reuters reported Nov. 11. The bank’s site lists it for Corporate Bank clients in Germany and says it can serve customers elsewhere in Europe when regulations permit.
The service supports five assets: Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), USDC, EURC and EURAU. Deutsche Bank said it will administer clients’ wallets and private keys, while providing safekeeping and transfers to third parties. That gives customers a bank-run custody option without requiring them to set up comparable systems themselves, according to the bank’s September announcement.
In its Sept. 16 plan, Deutsche Bank described an intended client base that included companies, asset managers, hedge funds, custodians, brokers and sovereign institutions. The bank says its key safeguards use hardware security modules and that clients can choose warm or cold storage. Customers can configure transfer approvals and access the offering through Autobahn, the bank’s gateway.
In October, Gerald Podobnik, Deutsche Bank’s Co-Head Corporate Bank, told Reuters a German launch was near; EconoTimes covered his forecast.
Paul Maley, Deutsche Bank’s global head of trust and securities services, told Reuters the bank’s medium-term goal is to bring custody, tokenization and settlement into one regulated service. Deutsche Bank has not given a date for those additions.
The bank’s September announcement said the range of supported assets may grow depending on client demand and subject to product approval, risk management and regulatory processes. Separately, it identified tokenized financial instruments as an item on its roadmap.
Deutsche Bank said customers remain exposed to price swings, fraud, cyber incidents and failures by other market participants. Digital assets also lack deposit-guarantee protection comparable to that for eligible bank deposits, the bank said.
