Deutsche Börse joins Sygnum and Swissom to build a trusted digital asset ecosystem

The emerging tokenized economy needs a trusted, comprehensive and regulatory compliant ecosystem. To achieve this, Deutsche Börse Group, one of the world’s largest market infrastructure providers, Swisscom, the leading Swiss Information and Communication Technology (ICT) company and one of its leading IT service providers, and Sygnum, a Swiss and Singapore-based financial technology company in the regulatory process to obtain a Swiss banking and securities dealer license, have entered into a strategic partnership.

The allies aim to jointly build out and grow a trusted and regulatory compliant financial market infrastructure for digital assets. Deutsche Börse and Sygnum are currently conceptualizing the establishment of a further building block of the ecosystem – a listing and trading venue for digital assets in the Swiss market. Access to liquidity via an open, regulatory compliant marketplace is considered a critical element for building a scalable digital assets ecosystem.

The strategic partnership also includes an investment by Deutsche Börse in Custodigit AG, a joint venture by Swisscom and Sygnum established in 2018. Custodigit provides a technical solution for the custody of digital assets for regulated financial services institutions. The integrated platform allows bank customers to manage the entire life cycle of their digital assets. As one of the main shareholders, Deutsche Börse will actively support the growth journey of Custodigit AG and its service offering.

Furthermore, Deutsche Börse and Sygnum will become shareholders of daura AG. The company has developed a platform that uses Distributed Ledger Technologies to issue, securely transfer and register Swiss SME-shares, enabling non-listed companies to access the capital markets. As investors, Deutsche Börse and Sygnum will be actively involved in the companies’ future development.

The first products and services provided by the new ecosystem for digital assets are expected to be launched in the course of 2019.

About Sygnum
Sygnum was founded in 2018 in Zurich. Upon receipt of a Swiss banking and securities dealer license from the Swiss regulator FINMA, Sygnum 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 ecosystem established by the partners is based on Decentralized Ledger Infrastructure developed and operated by Swisscom, meeting security requirements of financial services institutions and allowing for scalability.

(Press release/ran)