Three financial industry players are teaming up to offer a complete infrastructure in trading and custody of digital assets.
Berner Kantonalbank (BEKB) is teaming up with Switzerland’s SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) and Daura to offer a complete infrastructure for the issuance, custody, and trading of tokenized shares, according to a statement (in German) Thursday.
«With this partnership, BEKB is further expanding its offering around tokenized shares,» said BEKB CEO Armin Brun. «By involving the central securities depository (CSD), we enable the bank custody of such shares for a broad audience. This confirms BEKB’s activities in this area – and as a cantonal bank, we are making a contribution to helping digital shares achieve a breakthrough on a broad front.»
Next Step
For BEKB, the partnership is the next step in the expansion of its SME|X secondary market, which will become accessible to other players outside the current ecosystem in the foreseeable future. «This will benefit SMEs in particular, which will henceforth be able to issue their shares digitally and thus address a broader investor base,» Brun added.
Building such a digital ecosystem in finance offers benefits on all fronts. SMEs on the Daura platform benefit from a real-time digital share register, digital general meetings (AGMs), and increased appeal to institutional investors.
Global Debut
Investors can count on easier transferability of their investments and enjoy regulated bank custody in the securities account of their choice. Companies, like investors, will benefit from being able to place their shares on BEKB’s SME|X secondary marketplace.
«As the world’s first fully regulated and fully integrated digital securities platform offering issuance, listing, trading, settlement, servicing and custody of digital securities, we are pleased to add BEKB as a new member to our CSD,» according to David Newns, Head of SDX.
Finma License
SDX is licensed by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma) to operate an exchange and central securities depository (CSD). It offers issuance, listing, trading, settlement, servicing, and custody of digital securities.
Daura touts itself as the market leader for issuing and managing digital equity instruments including stocks, participation certificates, and convertible bonds in unlisted companies in Switzerland.
It also enables the seamless integration of digital assets into the existing financial market infrastructure in Switzerland’s marketplaces and banks.
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