DZ Bank Counts on Metaco to Offer Crypto Assets Custody

DZ Bank, one of the largest German banks in terms of held assets, has announced its newest partnership with Metaco, a digital assets technology provider, widening its current asset management and custody services with digital currencies.

Metaco Enters into Partnership with DZ Bank

According to Thursday's press release sent to Finance Magnates, the German lender selected Harmonize custody platform by Metaco to offer its institutional clients access to cryptocurrencies. The decision to cooperate with the Swiss-based company was made after extensive diligence and a proof-of-concept process.

Metaco's agnostic model allows for diverse deployment approaches and incorporates a hardware-based key management infrastructure, ensuring the security of various digital assets, such as tokenized securities like bonds and equities. Additionally, Harmonize provides a flexible governance framework that enables the customization of risk and compliance controls, while fully segregating multiple business units and clients to ensure policy, user, account, and asset isolation.

Nils Christopeit, the Lead Solution Design Digital Custody at DZ Bank, said the Harmonize platform proved a "powerful solution" supporting the DZ Bank operating model.

"With the offering we can build by using this technology, we trust to create a durable and fast-growing business cooperation as well as an attractive solution for our clients that can also meet the requirements of digital currencies and decentralized financial instruments," Christopeit added.

DZ Bank is a provider of various financial services, with a particular focus on asset management for institutional clients. It stands out as one of the largest German lenders and custodians, having €297 billion in assets under its administration by the end of 2022.

Metaco's Chief Sales Officer, Craig Perrin, stated that the company's infrastructure is an excellent fit for financial institutions looking to capitalize on the crypto assets industry.

Watch the recent FMLS22 panel discussion on: "Hodling on? Reimagining Crypto Market Structure."

Seven Years of Metaco's Expansion

Metaco is an enterprise technology company that was established in Switzerland in 2015. The company's primary goal is to empower financial and non-financial institutions to construct their digital asset operations securely.

In recent years, Metaco established partnerships with many leading companies in the broader financial industry. For example, in 2019, the leading insurance broker, Aon became a partner of the cryptocurrency firm.

A year later, the crypto custody platform successfully closed a $17 million Series A funding round. According to announcements at the time, the round was oversubscribed, with demand over double the initial target and led by Giesecke+Devrient, a German-based security technology company.

Additionally, Societe Generale bet on Metaco's cryptocurrency offering, wanting to build "a solid foundation" for its digital asset business. Additionally, the collaboration enabled it to lead efforts to integrate security tokens into traditional finance.

Finance Magnates recently informed that the Swiss-based fintech company appointed Seamus Donoghue as its Chief Growth Officer. Until his appointment, Donoghue was the Vice President of Strategic Alliances.