Last week, TEN31 Bank, the crypto brand of Germany’s WEG Bank, announced a partnership with Singapore-based Anquan Capital, the company behind blockchain protocol Zilliqa, advertising platform Aqilliz, and Anqlave. The partnership would enable TEN31 to explore new blockchain solutions for banking and financial services and includes an investment from Anquan.
WEG Bank is a small bank in Germany servicing the housing and real estate sector. It had €85 million in total assets as of 2018. Over 30% of the bank is owned by cryptocurrency companies such as Nimiq, TokenPay, and Litecoin Foundation. TEN31 was established to further its cryptocurrency interests and operates as a fully regulated bank in Germany.
TEN31, through its partnerships, supports digital coins, fiat to crypto payments, crypto payments at point of sale, and crypto exchange, among other services. It is essentially promoting the use of digital currencies leveraging conventional banking systems.
Anquan Capital has prior experience of working in the FinTech space and assisted the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Singapore Exchange (SGX) to develop a settlement system for tokenized assets. SGX and Anquan have also worked on a BondChain project.
TEN31 plans to launch joint projects to explore fintech opportunities, with digital currency custody a likely focus area. We previously reported that 40 German banks had approached German regulator BaFin expressing an interest in getting in to the digital asset custody business. For custody, Anqlave could form part of the solution. Anquan emphasized its interest in regulatory compliance.
“With Anquan as a shareholder, we have added yet another ideal partner to our network. Not only do we benefit from their excellent technologies, but we also secure a spearhead in the Asian region in the long term,” said Matthias von Hauff, CEO of TEN31 Bank.
