Taurus is best known as a digital asset custody technology provider with its Taurus-PROTECT solution. Today it is announcing Taurus-NETWORK, which will enable its clients to collaborate on digital assets, particularly for collateral. It refers to it as an interbank network because it boasts several banks as clients, including the relatively recent addition of the world’s second largest global custodian, State Street.
Banking investors in Taurus include Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Arab Bank Switzerland and Pictet Group. Plus, others such as CACEIS and Santander are also amongst Taurus’ 35 banking clients.
The early participants in the network include Arab Bank Switzerland, Capital Union Bank, Flowdesk, ISP Group, Misyon Bank, and Swissquote.
The company claims that a major benefit of using the Taurus-NETWORK will be improved liquidity and capital management, particularly with its collateral management solution. This enables network participants to pledge collateral in exchange for funds. And it supports banks participating in syndicated loans.
“Network participants retain control of their assets and never rely on Taurus to enter or unwind transactions,” said Vassili Lavrov, Head of Product Infrastructure. “Taurus-NETWORK creates an ecosystem covering public and permissioned DLTs, as well as all types of assets whether cryptocurrencies, tokenised securities and digital currencies.”
Other custody providers provide networks and collaboration solutions, including Fireblocks and Zodia Custody. So we were curious how this one differs.
A spokesperson responded by email, “Taurus-NETWORK stands out from similar networks as it removes the network operator counterparty risk: the risk is strictly to network participants, there is no exposure to Taurus. It also offers customizable workflows for governance rules, settlement, and risk management processes among other features. Additionally, integration with Taurus-PROTECT for wallet balance pledging and cold wallet trading, reduces counterparty risk — a significant hurdle for collaboration in digital asset trading.”
Meanwhile, in February Taurus floated a private tokenization standard on permissionless blockchains.
