Deutsche Bank crypto custody is now running for paying clients. The bank said on Wednesday 11 November that its digital asset custody service had gone live, Reuters reported from Frankfurt in a story updated at 08:04 UTC. Germany’s largest lender offers it to institutional and corporate clients in Europe and keeps the private keys for them. Five assets are on the list, according to the bank’s 16 September release: bitcoin, ether and the stablecoins or e-money tokens USDC, EURC and EURAU. No client, balance or fee was disclosed.
The same day, the bank signed a memorandum of understanding with Deutsche Asset Management, the fund manager it mostly owns, which was called DWS until recently. The aim is to look at working together on digital assets, Reuters said. No product or date is attached.
The bank appeared in the EU’s MiCA register in October, as we reported on 16 October. That entry has changed since. Deutsche Bank’s row now lists 30 countries where it may offer the service, France and Italy among them, where our October piece found Germany alone.
Deutsche Bank crypto custody: what paying clients get from today
The service is for clients of the Corporate Bank and the Investment Bank. The September release names corporates, asset managers, hedge funds, custodians, brokers and sovereign institutions, each admitted under the bank’s own criteria, due diligence and risk appetite. Retail customers are excluded.
What clients get is narrow: they can keep the five assets with the bank and have them sent to third parties. Trading, exchange services and tokenised securities are not part of the first offer, crypto.news reported. Clients reach the service through Autobahn, the bank’s corporate banking platform, according to the same report.
Custody here means that Deutsche Bank generates and guards the private keys that control the coins. A company treasury holding bitcoin can leave that work to its bank instead of running it in-house or paying a crypto specialist. The release describes the controls: hardware-based key protection, separate warm and cold storage, approval by several people for sensitive actions, segregation of duties, a redundant technical setup and controlled backup and recovery.
The same document carries the warnings. Crypto-assets held this way are not covered by a deposit guarantee comparable to the one on eligible bank deposits. The release lists the risks that remain, from price swings and fraud to cyber incidents and the failure of other market participants, and says the service does not protect against a fall in value.
Who built the technology is not public. The bank says “selected external technology and infrastructure providers” handle some technical parts, and names none. Swiss firm Taurus has worked with Deutsche Bank on custody and tokenisation technology since 2023, crypto.news noted; the bank has not said whether Taurus runs the live service. Bloomberg reported in July 2025, citing unnamed sources, that Bitpanda’s technology unit was helping to build the offering. Deutsche Bank has not confirmed that.
Paul Maley, the bank’s global head of trust and securities services, told Reuters the medium-term goal is a “fully integrated, regulated ecosystem” for the custody, tokenisation and settlement of digital assets.
For context, bitcoin stood near $73,980 and ether near $2,056 at 11:38 UTC, according to our market snapshot, both a little lower over 24 hours.
The ESMA register entry: an Article 60 notification covering 30 countries
The interim MiCA register, which ESMA publishes as a spreadsheet, lists Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft with BaFin as supervisor and 12 October 2026 in its authorisation or notification date column. Two services are recorded: custody and administration of crypto-assets on behalf of clients, and transfers of crypto-assets on behalf of clients.
Two other fields say more. The legal basis reads “Article 60 – Notification”: the bank used the route MiCA keeps for firms that are already regulated, not the licence crypto companies apply for. And the service countries run to 30, Germany plus the 26 other EU states and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, the three other members of the European Economic Area.
The row was last updated on 20 October 2026. On 16 October, when Coindaro first reported the entry, Germany was the only country shown and we wrote that French and Italian institutions had no passport. The update four days later added the other 29 countries, so that statement no longer holds.
A country on the list is a permission, not a customer. The services can be offered in Germany, and eligible clients in other European markets can be served through cross-border arrangements, crypto.news reported. No client in any country has been named.
Article 60 explained: why a bank notifies instead of applying for a CASP licence
MiCA has two doors. A crypto company such as an exchange applies for authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider (CASP), and the supervisor examines its owners, managers, capital and systems. A bank takes the other door: under Article 60, a credit institution may provide crypto-asset services if it notifies its home supervisor at least 40 working days before it starts.
The file is substantial. It must contain a programme of operations, anti-money-laundering controls and a business continuity plan, ICT and security documentation, the rules that keep client assets separate and, for custody, the custody policy. The supervisor has 20 working days to check that it is complete and can ask for missing pieces. Until the file is complete, the bank may not start.
What the bank avoids is the CASP authorisation procedure and the rules written for crypto firms on capital and governance: paragraph 10 says Articles 62, 63, 64, 67, 83 and 84 do not apply to firms that notify. Banking law already puts heavier capital rules on a bank, and it keeps the same supervisor. If it loses the authorisation behind the notification, the right to provide crypto services ends with it.
Cross-border service is not on that list of exemptions, so a notifying bank follows the same passport steps as a licensed crypto firm. Under Article 65, the firm tells its home supervisor which countries it wants to serve, which services and from when. The supervisor forwards this to the host countries, ESMA and the European Banking Authority within 10 working days. The firm may start once it is told the notice went out, or at the latest on the 15th calendar day after filing.
Banks use this route a lot. Of the 397 rows in the register on 11 November, 150 cite Article 60 alone and three cite both Article 60 and the CASP licence. Germany is home to 125 rows; 66 of them are Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken, the cooperative banks, all listed for Germany only. Our guide to the MiCA regulation explains the CASP regime.
What the passport means for French and Italian institutions
For a French asset manager or an Italian corporate treasury, the entry means Deutsche Bank may hold its bitcoin or euro stablecoins from Frankfurt without a separate authorisation from the Autorité des marchés financiers or Consob. Supervision stays with BaFin. The French and Italian authorities receive the cross-border notice; they do not approve the service.
The client still has to pass the bank’s onboarding as a client of its Corporate Bank or Investment Bank. A private investor in Lyon or Milan cannot open such an account. No French or Italian institution has said it uses the service.
Banks at home are in the register too. In France, Société Générale-Forge has been listed since 23 October 2025 for custody, order execution and transfers, under both Article 60 and the CASP regime, in 29 countries that do not include France itself. CACEIS Bank notified custody, reception and transmission of orders and transfers on 23 June 2025 for seven countries, Germany and Italy among them. In Italy, Consob lists Banca Sella since 27 April 2026 for custody and transfers in Italy only, and Commerzbank’s German entry names Italy as a service country.
The Deutsche Asset Management memorandum and the EURAU link
The memorandum is exploratory. Reuters quoted its purpose as “to explore comprehensive commercial and technical collaboration opportunities in the digital asset space”. No product, fee or timetable came with it.
One tie between the two firms already sits in the custody list. EURAU, one of the five launch assets, is issued by AllUnity, which describes itself as a joint venture of DWS, Flow Traders and Galaxy. BaFin granted AllUnity an e-money institution licence on 1 July 2025, the company announced the next day. Reuters’ report does not connect the memorandum to EURAU.
The bank is also one of 21 lenders behind Project Faro, the dollar stablecoin with $270 million of committed funding that Coindaro reported this morning.
Other European banks already in the MiCA register
Frankfurt’s biggest lender is not first. The rows below come from the ESMA file read on 11 November; the country count includes the home country when the row lists it.
| Bank | Supervisor | Register date | Route | Services listed | Countries listed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deutsche Bank | BaFin | 12 Oct 2026 | Article 60 | Custody, transfer | 30 |
| BNY SA/NV | National Bank of Belgium | 20 Jul 2026 | Not stated | Custody, transfer | 30 |
| Banca Sella | Consob | 27 Apr 2026 | Not stated | Custody, transfer | 1 (Italy) |
| DZ Bank | BaFin | 23 Dec 2025 | Article 60 | Custody, execution, transfer | 1 (Germany) |
| DekaBank | BaFin | 1 Dec 2025 | Article 60 | Custody, execution, transfer (exchange for funds added 25 Jun 2026) | 1 (Germany) |
| Société Générale-Forge | AMF | 23 Oct 2025 | Article 60 and CASP | Custody, execution, transfer | 29 (France not listed) |
| CACEIS Bank | AMF | 23 Jun 2025 | Article 60 | Custody, order transmission, transfer | 7 (France not listed) |
| Commerzbank | BaFin | 7 Apr 2025 | Article 60 | Custody, transfer | 2 (Germany, Italy) |
Commerzbank was earlier still under German law. It received a crypto custody licence under the German Banking Act in November 2023 and, in a release of 19 September 2024, said it was offering custody of bitcoin and ether to selected corporate clients in Germany, with Crypto Finance, a Deutsche Börse company, handling trading. Like Deutsche Bank now, it began with bitcoin and ether for companies. Unlike Deutsche Bank, it had a trading partner from the start.
BNY, the New York custody bank, entered through its Belgian bank, BNY SA/NV. The register notes that the National Bank of Belgium confirmed its file complete on 20 July and that it could offer crypto services from 27 July, in the same 30 countries as Deutsche Bank.
Some banks buy their way in. Standard Chartered agreed to take full control of the custodian Zodia, with price and closing date still undisclosed.
What Deutsche Bank has not said, and what comes next
The launch report leaves the size of the business open. The bank has not said how many clients signed up, who they are, how much crypto it holds, what it charges or which assets each client uses. It has not named the firm whose technology runs the wallets, or said whether any client outside Germany is live.
The September release puts tokenised financial instruments on the roadmap and warns that timing, countries, assets and scope may change. More assets may come, subject to client demand and the bank’s approval, risk and regulatory processes.
Asia is next on the map. Gerald Podobnik, co-head of the Corporate Bank, said in October that the bank planned to take crypto custody to major Asian financial centres in 2027, crypto.news reported, and the bank also plans fiat-to-stablecoin conversion, tokenised deposits and support for digital bond issues. None of those has a date. In September, Podobnik called digital assets “an important complement” to the traditional financial system, not a replacement.