Deutsche Bank Launches Institutional Crypto Custody

Deutsche Bank has launched its digital-asset custody service for paying institutional and corporate clients in Europe, allowing the bank to safeguard and transfer assets including Bitcoin and Ether. The service puts the bank in charge of clients’ wallets and private keys, while retail customers are not included. The bank says it aims to build a broader regulated offering that could include tokenization and transaction settlement, and it has also agreed with its asset-management arm to explore collaboration on digital assets. Deutsche Bank has discussed expanding the service into Asia, but has not announced a launch date; it has also disclosed no client numbers or assets under custody, so the scale of the business remains unclear.