Taurus–a Swiss fintech for enterprise-grade crypto services–has announced an agreement with Deutsche Bank to establish digital asset custody. Alongside crypto custody, Deutsche Bank will also use Taurus’ infrastructure to offer tokenization services for its customers, as per a press release shared with Decrypt.
“We look forward to supporting the bank in launching digital assets and DLT-based products,” said Lamine Brahimi, managing partner and co-founder of Taurus, in today’s announcement.
“We believe the tokenized economy will continue to develop,” Paul Maley, Global Head of Securities for Deutsche Bank, told Decrypt. He added that “We expect to see more and more traditional assets and cash payments eventually come “on-chain.”
“As the digital asset space is expected to encompass trillions of dollars of assets, it’s bound to be seen as one of the priorities for investors and corporations alike. As such, custodians must start adapting to support their clients,” Maley said, in a press release shared with Decrypt.
“Institutional interest is building”
At a time of seemingly muted enthusiasm for crypto related products across the market, the announcement indicates that behind-the-scenes, institutions are intent on the asset class.
Brahimi told Decrypt that this agreement, “shows that institutional interest is building,” and that it “counters the argument that nobody is left.” For him, Deutsche Bank entering the space is key to developing and advancing digital asset adoption.
When asked about whether the collapse of FTX has influenced public perception regarding the digital asset class, Brahimi said that since Deutsche Bank is a major traditional financial institution, its entry can “only help improve trust in crypto markets.”
Maley echoed Brahimi, stating that, “Following the high profile fallouts, we are seeing greater customer demand for highly regulated players like ourselves to enter this space.”
According to Brahimi, Taurus works across the full spectrum of financial institutions–establishing services in four continents and ten continents–including systemic banks, online banks, crypto banks and others. The company announced a $65 million Series B round earlier this year, led by Credit Suisse and the aforementioned Deutsche Bank.
The Swiss based company announced in early June its integration with Polygon, ensuring the banks it works with can “issue, book, and service” tokenized assets on the proof-of-stake network.
Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest bank with $1.3 trillion in assets under management, recently applied for a digital custody license in Germany. The German financial giant has reportedly been working on a crypto asset custody platform since 2020.
The agreement announced today is immediate, and as per Maley, “We are already working with [Taurus].”
