Key facts
- Deutsche Bank said the custody service is open to institutional and corporate clients and stores bitcoin and ether.
- Paul Maley, the bank's global head of trust and securities services, said the bank aims in the medium term at a fully integrated, regulated ecosystem.
- Deutsche Bank said it plans to expand the custody service to Asia but has not announced a launch date.
- Deutsche Bank said the agreement with its asset management unit, formerly DWS, covers proposed cooperation in digital finance; no financial terms or schedule were disclosed.
Deutsche Bank said on November 11, 2026 that its digital asset custody service had started accepting paying clients, giving institutional and corporate customers a place to store bitcoin and ether. The German lender said the service follows a September announcement in which it outlined plans to offer regulated cryptocurrency custody across Europe, contingent on receiving the necessary regulatory approvals.
The bank said it intends to extend the service beyond custody, with plans to add digital asset tokenization and transaction settlement. Paul Maley, the bank's global head of trust and securities services, said: "In the medium term we aim to deliver a fully integrated, regulated ecosystem." Maley said the bank intends to combine custody, tokenization and settlement under regulated operations.
Deutsche Bank said it plans to expand the custody service to Asia after the European launch, an expansion it had announced earlier without giving a confirmed launch date.
Alongside the custody launch, the bank said it signed a memorandum of understanding with its asset management subsidiary, Deutsche Asset Management, formerly DWS, to examine commercial and technical cooperation on digital asset services. Deutsche Bank said the memorandum covers proposed cooperation in various areas of digital finance and did not disclose financial terms or a launch schedule for projects under the agreement.