- Summary:
- DZ Bank has $325 million in assets under custody and joins a growing number of banks attracted to Metaco's crypto asset services.
DZ Bank, Germany’s second-largest bank with $315 billion in assets under custody, has hired Swiss company Metaco to help manage its digital assets services. The company will oversee the management of crypto services for the bank’s institutional clients through its Harmonize platform. DZ Bank attributed the decision to choose Metaco to the security and scalability of Metaco’s Harmonize platform, which it says meets its needs.
According to Metaco, the platform is specifically designed to help institutions integrate digital assets and give them an edge as they participate in the digital asset economy. In early February, Metaco announced a cooperation agreement with another German bank, DekaBank, to build a blockchain-based tokenisation platform.
The allure of digital assets and how Metaco is seizing the moment
The past year has seen the crypto market endure frigid conditions, what with the collapse of major crypto companies like FTX and the fall in the crypto market capitalisation from $3 trillion to under $1 trillion. However, there are signs of recovery, with the crypto market bellwether, Bitcoin, rising from $16k to $24k in the last three weeks.
Traditional financial institutions are likely to maintain their high levels of crypto optimism. DZ Bank thinks that by working with Metaco, it can create long-lasting and rapidly expanding business partnerships, as well as an appealing solution for clients that can also suit the needs presented by crypto and other digital financial instruments.
Digital assets recorded in a central registry or “crypto securities” and other financial instruments produced on public or private blockchains are permitted by German law under eWpG. Metaco says its agnostic model is a good fit for many digital assets, including tokenised securities like bonds and shares. The firm says that the model allows for multiple deployment strategies on a secure hardware-enforced key management infrastructure.
Metaco has partnered with many large financial institutions in recent months. Notably, it has partnered with Citibank, Societe Generale and Dekabank to provide digital assets products to their institutional clients. Late last year, the firm also supported UnionBank of the Philippines in introducing Bitcoin custody and trading services.