Commerzbank partners with Deutsche Borse’s subsidiary for crypto offerings

Commerzbank has teamed up with Deutsche Borse’s Crypto Finance unit to offer its corporate clients in Germany access to Bitcoin and Ethereum.

German financial institution Commerzbank has partnered with Deutsche Börse subsidiary Crypto Finance to offer cryptocurrency trading and custody services to its institutional clients, following the acquisition of its crypto custody license in 2023.

Commerzbank will oversee the custody of crypto assets and manage Crypto Finance trading services, according to a Sept. 19 announcement. Gernot Kleckner, a member of the board of directors of Commerzbank’s capital markets division, described the offering as a secure opportunity for institutional clients to “seize the opportunities that Bitcoin and Ethereum offer for the first time.”

Commerzbank’s move comes as demand for regulated crypto services in Germany grows. Crypto Finance has expanded in Germany after receiving four licenses from the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority. This is not the first collaboration between Commerzbank and Deutsche Börse in the digital asset space.

In 2021, the duo partnered with fintech firm 360X to work together on a blockchain-based marketplace to tokenize assets like real estate and art. At the time, Deutsche Börse CEO Theodor Weimer said the platform would help “tokenize and digitize assets that cannot be traded today.”

The German banking sector has been increasingly active in the crypto space recently. Germany’s second-largest credit institution, DZ Bank, is also set to launch a crypto trading pilot for retail clients later this year, allowing cooperative banks to offer digital asset trading directly to customers.