Deutsche Bank AG has applied for a digital assets licence with German regulators, according to reports by Bloomberg.
This includes cryptocurrencies – aligning with the bank’s broader efforts to expand income from digital asset offerings.
A green light from Germany’s financial regulator, BaFin, would open the gates for Deutsche Bank to operate a custody service for digital assets.
During a conference on Tuesday, David Lynne, the head of the bank’s commercial banking unit, noted:“We’re building out our digital assets and custody business. We just put our application into the BaFin for the digital asset licence.”
He tagged the application as a part of a wider strategy to increase fee income at Deutsche Bank’s corporate bank. Its investment arm, DWS Group, has also been observed taking similar digital asset-focused efforts.
The German bank’s interest in digital asset custody started just quite recently. Back in 2020, the bank tagged Bitcoin as “too volatile” to be a “reliable” store of value in a research report titled “The Future of Payments”.
Nevertheless, the latest move mirrors a belief that was stated in this 2020 report which held cryptos to have the potential to “revolutionise” payments: “Still in their infancy, digital currencies have the potential to radically change payments, banking, central banking, and the balance of economic power.”
The bank’s push into the digital asset sector comes nearly three years after its corporate bank first hinted at such plans. At that time, the division was run by Stefan Hoops. Lynne took over the role about a year ago when Hoops joined DWS as chief executive officer.
