Deutsche Bank Joins Singapore's Project Guardian for Tokenization Trials

Deutsche Bank has joined the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Project Guardian to explore asset tokenization.

The initiative will explore the feasibility of asset tokenization in regulated financial markets and will see the German financial giant participate as part of the asset and wealth management workstream.

Deutsche Bank will test an open, interoperable blockchain platform designed to manage tokenized and digital funds. The bank will then propose protocol standards based on its findings.

Working with Momento Blockchain and Interop Labs, Deutsche Bank has appointed its Asia Pacific Head of Securities & Technology, Boon-Hong Chan, to lead its Project Guardian initiative.

"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," Anand Rengarajan, Head of Securities Services for Asia Pacific and the Middle East and Global Head of Sales said.

Project Guardian is a multi-year collaborative project between global policymakers and financial industry representatives. Key participants include regulatory bodies such as the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Switzerland’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), and Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA).

Its initiative is to test and develop the feasibility of blockchain technology to tokenize assets.

In November, MAS unveiled five more pilots to its Project Guardian blockchain initiative to focus on asset tokenization:

• Citi, Trowe Price Associates and Fidelity International
• BNY Mellon and OCBC
• Ant International
• Franklin Templeton