Germany’s 2nd Largest Bank Announces Crypto Custody Service

One of DZ Bank’s largest clients is Union Investment, which has €427 billion in assets under management. According to DZ Bank’s head of the securities management division, Holger Meffert, most of Union Investment’s funds are in DZ Bank’s depository bank. Therefore, the bank needs to be able to cover its clients' investment needs. Union Investment also prioritizes innovation and has previously made a significant investment in tokenized Ethereum bond issuance. Asset managers like Union Investment tend to invest internationally, which means DZ Bank needs to be able to support international investments as well. Also of interest is the fact that both DZ Bank and Union Investment were investors in the $60 million euro bond that German manufacturing giant Siemens fractionalized using the Polygon distributed ledger.

The adoption of institutional Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) solutions is an important step as banking internationally is changing rapidly. Once a core DLT solution is integrated, the lower entry barriers can support this need for asset management enterprises.

“It’s the right decision to ramp up our own custody solution to be able to participate in the building of networks,” said Meffert.