Deutsche Börse Group announced that has joined forces with Swisscom, the Swiss Information and Communication Technology (ICT) company, and Sygnum, a Swiss and Singapore-based fintech firm. The companies want to build out and grow a trusted and regulatory compliant financial market infrastructure for digital assets.
The ecosystem’s aim is to enable investors to tap into these new asset classes and accommodate to future client needs. The core elements of the solution will include issuance, custody, access to liquidity, and banking services – all leveraging DLT in a regulatory compliant environment.
Deutsche Börse has already invested in Swisscom and Sygnum’s joint venture Custodigit AG, which was part of the deal. Custodigit is an integrated platform, which provides a technical solution for the custody of digital assets for regulated financial services institutions, as well as allowing bank customers to manage the entire life cycle of their digital assets.
The first products and services provided by the new ecosystem for digital assets are expected to be launched in the course of 2019.
Jens Hachmeister, Managing Director, DLT, Crypto Assets and New Market Structure, Deutsche Börse highlights:
This cooperation, the complementary infrastructure and expertise of the parties involved, is a great opportunity for creating a comprehensive and market leading ecosystem for digital assets. With Swisscom and Sygnum we have two highly recognized partners on board and we are looking forward to bundle forces. Continuing our investments in new technologies and driving the development around DLT forward is a key focus of Deutsche Börse Group. Switzerland, known to be a nucleus for financial markets innovation, is the ideal starting point for Deutsche Börse to drive this evolution forward.
Roger Wüthrich-Hasenböhler, Chief Digital Officer of Swisscom explains:
The collaboration with Deutsche Börse and Sygnum is the perfect step for the development of a comprehensive digital asset ecosystem. The cooperation allows to advance our vision of an extensive solution for the registration, safekeeping and transfer of digital assets. The partnership combines unique know-how in the fields of digital assets, banking, compliance and technology. Thus, we are in the perfect condition to create solutions for regulated financial service providers that are based on security, reliability and compliance, and enable them to enter a new financial services era.
Mathias Imbach, Founding Partner & CEO Singapore of Sygnum adds:
Sygnum’s banking expertise and ability to innovate rapidly using Distributed Ledger Technologies, combined with Deutsche Börse and Swisscom’s experience in building and operating scalable financial services infrastructure, is a winning formula. We are thrilled to embark on this journey with two such strong partners to unlock the potential of the digital asset universe for institutional market participants – and ultimately spearhead digital assets’ transition from mainstream awareness to mainstream adoption. The establishment of a trusted digital asset ecosystem is also another strong example of Switzerland and Singapore’s continued leading role in global financial markets innovation.