DZ Bank, one of Germany’s largest banks, has announced the launch of its own platform for digital asset custody based on blockchain technology. The platform will serve institutional clients and offer them crypto securities, such as the crypto bond issued by Siemens, which DZ Bank subscribed to in May 2023.

The bank’s head of securities services and digital custody, Holger Meffert, said that the bank expects that a significant portion of the capital market business will be processed via distributed ledger technology (DLT) in the next decade. He added that DZ Bank sees DLT as a complementary technology to the existing infrastructures in the capital market processes.

The bank also plans to enable institutional investors and private customers to buy cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, in the future. To do so, DZ Bank has applied for a crypto custody license from the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) in June 2023.

DZ Bank is not the only German bank that is embracing crypto. Several other banks, such as Deutsche WertpapierServiceBank, DWS, Commerzbank and DekaBank, are also developing or seeking crypto-related services and products, despite the strict regulatory environment in Germany.