Deutsche Bank Gets BaFin Green Light for Crypto Custody — SkimNews
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- Deutsche Bank received authorization from Germany's BaFin on Monday, per the European Securities and Markets Authority's interim MiCA register, with the bank expecting full regulatory approval for its custody offering in October.
- Deutsche Bank plans to launch crypto custody in Germany and then expand into Asian financial centers in 2027, citing the rapid growth of the digital asset economy — including hundreds of billions of dollars held in stablecoins — as the driver.
- Gerald Podobnik, co-head of Deutsche Bank's corporate bank, told Reuters the Asian push is part of the bank's goal to hit 8% compound annual growth in corporate banking by 2028.
- The custody service will initially support Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and the stablecoins Circle USDC, EURC and AllUnity EUR, according to a Sept. 16 press release.
- Deutsche Bank partnered with crypto infrastructure platform Taurus in September 2023 to build out the custody service.
Why it matters: With BaFin authorization secured, Germany's largest bank becomes one of the first major universal banks approved to custody crypto under MiCA, entering a market dominated by specialists like Coinbase and BitGo. The 2027 Asia target is the strategic tell — Deutsche Bank is positioning its corporate-banking franchise to capture institutional tokenized-asset and stablecoin business in markets where regulators are rolling out clearer frameworks than in the U.S.
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