Deutsche Borse has become the latest major exchange to move into digital assets after completing its acquisition of trading, custody and brokerage firm Crypto Finance.
Originally announced in June earlier this year, the deal completed on 15 December and gave Deutsche Borse a majority stake in the company laying out the foundation for an “independent, transparent, and highly scalable ecosystem for digital assets under European regulation”.
It means the exchange can now offer its clients direct digital assets services including trading, custody, investment services and post-trade.
Deutsche Borse confirmed growth plans for the digital assets trading and brokerage firm under its parentage, with a focus on Germany in Europe and Singapore in Asia.
“Thanks to Crypto Finance’s proven expertise and the technologies they have developed, we can now enable financial institutions and professional investors to enter the digital asset market. This is a step further in our digital asset strategy,” said Eric Leupold, head of cash market at Deutsche Börse.
Alongside the acquisition, the exchange announced that Leupold had been appointed chairman of the board of directors replacing Dr Tobias Reichmuth who stepped down upon completion. It confirmed that Jan Brzezek and the current management team at Crypto Finance would remain at the helm and would continue to hold a significant stake in the company.
In October, Deutsche Börse unveiled its plans to launch a fully digital post-trade platform enabling end-to-end digital securities processing which will see a major transformation for its international central securities depository (CSD), Clearstream.
Cloud-backed and DLT-ready, the new D7 platform will enable the digitisation of financial products with continuing access to both existing central and distributed infrastructures and markets.