Germany's largest federal bank, Staatsbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW), is preparing to offer digital asset custody services and has partnered with crypto exchange Bitpanda.
The main goal is to meet the growing demand for digital asset management among institutional and corporate customers and is expected to be released in the second half of 2024.
According to an official announcement, LBBW will leverage Bitpanda Technology Solution's advanced “Investment-as-a-Service” (IaaS) infrastructure to provide cryptocurrency custody and procurement services to enterprise customers.
Bitpanda said that trials for custody and procurement of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital assets will be further developed in the coming months.
Commenting on this development, Dr. Jürgen Hallenger, Corporate Bank COO of LBBW, said:
“Corporate customers' demand for digital assets is increasing. We are confident that crypto assets will establish themselves as building blocks for further business models. With this cooperation, we will be able to We are building the technical and regulatory foundations early on to best support our strategy.”
German banks and asset managers are gradually increasing their involvement in crypto assets, perhaps by offering custody services or developing their own products for this asset class, perhaps in anticipation of upcoming EU regulations. ing.
As an example, Deutsche Bank is developing its own digital asset custody service, and its DWS division is joining a group to create a euro-denominated stablecoin.
Last February, DZ Bank, Germany's second-largest bank by assets, announced plans to offer digital asset custody services in collaboration with Swiss company Metaco and orchestration platform Harmonize.
