Deutsche Bank says bitcoin and ether custody is weeks away

Deutsche Bank is weeks from launching a crypto custody service in Germany, a senior executive said on October 16. It will hold bitcoin and ether for institutional clients first, the bank's first move into keeping digital assets for customers directly.

That timeline came from Gerald Podobnik, Co-Head of the Corporate Bank, who spoke to Reuters at the IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok. He said the first phase would cover major cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether, with help for moving money into and out of mainstream stablecoins to follow.

What the custody service will do

Deutsche Bank will hold crypto for clients and manage the wallets and private keys itself, so customers do not have to build their own storage. The bank set this out in an official statement on September 16.

At launch it plans to support bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), plus three stablecoins: Circle's USDC, its euro token EURC, and EURAU. That list may grow. Tokenized financial instruments sit further out on the roadmap.

Security controls named in the release include secure key generation, hardware-based protection, split duties, approvals that need more than one person, and separate warm and cold storage. Backup and recovery are built in. Deutsche Bank said it would use selected outside technology providers for defined parts of the system, though the statement named none.

Earlier reporting filled in some names. Bloomberg and The Block said the bank was building the service with Swiss firm Taurus and the technology arm of exchange Bitpanda, though the September statement itself listed no providers.

First customers will come from Deutsche Bank's Corporate Bank and Investment Bank: corporates, asset managers, hedge funds, custodians, brokers, and sovereign institutions. Retail investors are not part of the first phase.

People who want to hold their own keys are a separate case. Non-custodial wallets let individuals keep crypto without a bank in the middle.

What is new, and what is still open

The October 16 remarks added a tighter timeline and an expansion plan, but no firm launch date. Podobnik framed the move as part of a wider change. "I believe that, as the financial system, we will need to offer tokenised or blockchain solutions to our clients," he told Reuters.

He said the custody platform would reach Asian financial centres in 2027, after the German start, and tied the push to a goal of 8% compound annual growth in corporate banking by 2028. Tokenized deposits and digital securities are also on the corporate banking plan.

That "weeks away" line deserves care. Deutsche Bank first said the service would arrive this year, pending regulatory clearance, back in September. The same caveat still applies. It has not named a go-live date, and it has not named a first customer.

Plans are not products.

Why a bank wants to hold crypto

Banks are moving into custody because big investors want a regulated name holding their coins, not a startup. In the September statement, Podobnik said, "Digital assets are not a replacement for the traditional financial system but an important complement to it."

Deutsche Bank applied for a digital asset custody license with Germany's regulator, BaFin, in 2023. Rivals have moved faster in some places. Standard Chartered already offers institutional crypto custody in Singapore and has launched services in Dubai.

Europe's rules now give these banks a clearer path. MiCA sets common standards for crypto services across the bloc, and a bank must register as a crypto-asset service provider before it can hold client assets. BaFin runs that process in Germany. It is the clearance Deutsche Bank keeps pointing to.

What to watch

A go-live announcement and a named first client will be the clearest signal. Until then, this is a plan with a short clock.

Watch the German regulatory sign-off, the shift into stablecoin conversion, and whether the 2027 Asia plan names real cities. If Deutsche Bank ships on time, more European banks are likely to follow.