Deutsche Bank’s Bitcoin and Ether Custody Is Open to Clients, Bank Says

Deutsche Bank has begun holding digital assets for paying clients, the bank said on Wednesday, according to Reuters. In September it set a 2026 start for its first clients, on condition that a regulatory process was completed.

An EU register shows the regulatory step the bank took. Deutsche Bank AG appears in the interim crypto register kept by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) under MiCA, the bloc’s Markets in Crypto-Assets rulebook, with an entry dated Oct. 12. It covers holding crypto for clients and moving it on their behalf, and names BaFin, Germany’s financial regulator, as the supervisor.

The entry rests on Article 60 of MiCA, which lets a bank that already holds a banking license offer crypto services by notifying its regulator. The services are also passported, meaning the bank can offer them across borders from its German base: Unchained counted 30 countries on the entry, Germany and the 26 other EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

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The bank’s product page says the service is offered to clients of Deutsche Bank’s Corporate Bank. The September announcement named clients of both the Corporate Bank and the Investment Bank; the product page mentions only the Corporate Bank, and the bank has not said whether that reflects a change. The September release said the service is not for retail clients.

The supported tokens are bitcoin, ether, USDC, EURC and EURAU. The last three are stablecoins. EURAU is a euro token from AllUnity, a joint venture set up by Deutsche Bank’s majority-owned asset manager, then called DWS, with Galaxy and Flow Traders, as Unchained reported.

“In the medium term we aim to deliver a fully integrated, regulated ecosystem that supports the custody, tokenisation, and settlement of digital assets,” Paul Maley, Deutsche Bank’s global head of trust and securities services, said, according to Reuters. The Asian Banker reported on Oct. 13 that Maley said during the Sibos banking conference that the custody business had recently gone live.

In a second announcement on Wednesday, Reuters reported, the bank signed a memorandum of understanding, a preliminary agreement to explore working together, with its majority-owned fund arm. That firm, Deutsche Asset Management, went by DWS until recently. The agreement is “to explore comprehensive commercial and technical collaboration opportunities in the digital asset space,” Reuters reported.

How many institutions have signed up, and what the bank charges, appears neither in the Reuters report nor on the product page. Unchained could not find a release on the go-live or the agreement on Deutsche Bank’s website as of Wednesday afternoon.

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