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German stock exchange operator Deutsche Börse Group has partnered with Swisscom, a Swiss Information and Communication Technology (ICT) company, and Sygnum, a Swiss and Singapore-based fintech company, to jointly build a new digital asset ecosystem.
Under the partnership, the entities will work towards building and growing a trusted and regulatory compliant financial market infrastructure for digital assets.
The core elements of the solution will include issuance, custody, access to liquidity, and banking services – all leveraging Distributed-Ledger-Technology (DLT) in a regulatory compliant environment.
According to the official release, the strategic partnership includes an investment by Deutsche Börse in Custodigit AG, a joint venture by Swisscom and Sygnum founded in 2018. Custodigit AG provides a technical solution for the custody of digital assets for regulated financial services institutions.
In addition, Deutsche Börse and Sygnum will become shareholders of daura AG, which has developed a DLT-based platform that issues, securely transfers and registers Swiss SME-shares, enabling non-listed companies to access the capital markets.
Furthermore, Deutsche Börse and Sygnum are currently conceptualizing the establishment of a listing and trading venue for digital assets in the Swiss market.
“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,” Jens Hachmeister, Managing Director, DLT, Crypto Assets and New Market Structure, Deutsche Börse, said.
Sygnum is currently in the process of obtaining a Swiss banking and securities dealer license from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA). After it receives the license, it will provide comprehensive banking services such as custody, deposits, credit & lending, capital issuance via tokenization, brokerage and asset management within the digital asset ecosystem.
The first products and services provided by the new digital asset ecosystem are expected to be launched in the course of 2019. The partners are currently awaiting merger control clearance.
