Today Deutsche Bank announced it will participate in Singapore’s Project Guardian which explores tokenization on public blockchains. Last year the bank completed a proof of concept for Project DAMA (Digital Assets Management Access), which was awarded a grant from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Project Guardian already has 17 institutional participants, ten of whom are experimenting with asset and wealth management.
In addition to MAS, regulators from the UK (FCA), Switzerland (FINMA) and Japan (FSA) are also involved.
The first iteration of DAMA explored fund issuance and administration. The different participants, including the asset managers, transfer agents, and custodians, used a shared solution on a public blockchain. Like some other Project Guardian participants (Schroders, Apollo), DAMA also explored mass customization for asset managers.
For Project DAMA 2, Deutsche Bank will continue to explore servicing tokenized and digital funds. It plans to “propose protocol standards” and identify best practices.
The bank will continue its collaboration with Memento Blockchain, which has developed various DeFi asset management solutions and multi asset swaps. Memento is currently working on a zero knowledge Layer 2 solution. In addition to Memento, Deutsche Bank will also work with Interop Labs, the founder of the Axelar Network a blockchain interoperability platform. JP Morgan used Axelar for its Project Guardian initiative with Apollo.
“Contributing to Project Guardian will bolster our efforts to help shape the new frontier of asset servicing, and strongly position us to contribute to industry progress, and not only anticipate our clients’ needs but exceed their expectations,” said Anand Rengarajan, Head of Securities Services for Asia Pacific and the Middle East.
Some of Deutsche Bank’s recent web3 activity is coming out of DWS, its asset management subsidiary. It plans to launch ALLUnity, a Euro stablecoin initiative with Galaxy and Flow Traders.
