Deutsche Bank Opens Crypto Custody to Paying Clients in Europe
Deutsche Bank's crypto custody service is live. The bank said on Wednesday that corporate and institutional clients in Europe can now hold digital assets with it, less than two months after it set out the plan in September. Reuters, filing from Frankfurt, reported that the service had gone live for paying clients. What those clients can actually hold is where the accounts part company. The bank also signed a memorandum of understanding with Deutsche Asset Management, the money manager it mostly owns and which until recently was called DWS.
The asset list does not match
September's announcement covered custody of bitcoin, ether and three stablecoins, USDC, EURC and EURAU, for corporate and institutional customers across Europe, pending regulatory approvals. The Block repeated that five-asset list on Wednesday. crypto.news carried it too, attributing it to Reuters. The Reuters wire names only bitcoin and ether, and attaches those to the September plan rather than to Wednesday's launch. The accounts do not reconcile, and none of them states plainly what a paying client can hold today.
On the mechanics they agree. Clients hold the assets with the bank, which runs their wallets and private keys and can move holdings to other parties. The Block added that private keys sit behind hardware protection and that transfers need sign-off from more than one person. No other account carries that detail.
The custody permission
crypto.news reported that the bank's registration under MiCA, the European Union rulebook for crypto-assets that already forced conversions of non-compliant tokens for EEA customers, is dated 12 October and covers custody and transfer, with BaFin recording the permission and the entry appearing in the European Securities and Markets Authority's register. That account stands alone. Reuters says only that the September plan was pending regulatory approvals, and does not say whether they came through. Deutsche Bank has worked with the Swiss firm Taurus since 2023 on custody and tokenization technology.
The deal with the asset manager
Here the two accounts diverge again. Reuters gave the memorandum one phrase, saying the firms would explore commercial and technical collaboration opportunities in the digital asset space. The Block gave it a product list: tokenized money market funds, crypto-asset exchange-traded commodities, the wrappers European investors use for crypto exposure, and stablecoins, with custody, settlement, liquidity management, treasury and distribution run over the bank's platform. That scope appears in one place. crypto.news, writing the same morning, said specific products and launch dates had not been announced.
Deutsche Asset Management already sells crypto exchange-traded commodities and backs AllUnity, a euro stablecoin venture it runs with Flow Traders and Galaxy. The Block reported that its chief product officer, Manfred Bauer, is planning a tokenized money market fund, an account that stands by itself and carries no date. Other lenders have come at the same market from the other end, and one US bank now converts incoming USDC to dollars for its corporate clients.
"In the medium term we aim to deliver a fully integrated, regulated ecosystem that supports the custody, tokenisation, and settlement of digital assets," Paul Maley, the bank's global head of trust and securities services, said in Wednesday's announcement.
Nobody has been named yet
No first customers have been disclosed and no fees published. Retail is out of the initial launch, which covers corporate and investment banking clients. Reuters reported that the bank had told it earlier that it wanted to extend the service to Asia, and crypto.news put that at 2027, though the bank has not confirmed a date. The scope of what went live on Wednesday rests for now on three secondhand accounts that disagree with each other, and Deutsche Bank's own announcement page could not be read at the time of writing.
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