Deutsche Bank awaits October MiCA nod for crypto custody — SkimNews
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- Deutsche Bank announced it is awaiting regulatory approval to launch digital asset custody for institutional clients and corporations in Europe, targeting a go-live with first clients this year
- Heinrich Frömsdorf, a Deutsche Bank spokesperson, told Cointelegraph the bank expects to receive its custody license in October under the EU's Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework, which reached full enforcement on July 1
- Initial supported assets will include Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Circle USDC (USDC), EURC, and AllUnity EUR (EURAU), with tokenized financial instruments planned for a later phase
- Deutsche Bank first announced custody plans in 2023 through a partnership with Swiss infrastructure firm Taurus, shortly after applying for a digital asset custody license in Germany
- Sabih Behzad, Deutsche Bank's head of digital assets, revealed in June the bank was considering entering the stablecoin market, including issuing its own token
- Other German institutions are pursuing parallel crypto strategies — Landesbank Baden-Württemberg began crypto custody in April 2024 via a partnership with Bitpanda, and DZ Bank received BaFin authorization under MiCA in December 2025
Why it matters: If approved in October, Deutsche Bank — listed by the Financial Stability Board as a Global Systemically Important Bank — would become the first major German universal bank to offer institutional crypto custody under MiCA, giving European corporates and asset managers a regulated, systemically significant alternative to native crypto firms and validating MiCA's framework for traditional finance entry.
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