UK-based banking company HSBC has unveiled its plans to introduce a new digital assets custody service for institutional clients who invest in tokenised securities.
The new digital assets custody service will be offered in partnership with Swiss enterprise tech firm Metaco and is expected to come online in 2024.
The British lender said the new service will complement HSBC Orion, its platform for issuing digital assets, along with a recently launched offering for tokenised physical gold.
The new service will also serve as a complete digital asset offering for its institutional clients, said HSBC.
HSBC securities services chief digital, data and innovation officer Zhu Kuang Lee said: “We’re seeing increasing demand for custody and fund administration of digital assets from asset managers and asset owners, as this market continues to evolve.
“Through key partnerships, HSBC is delivering the next-generation custody infrastructure that will be scalable and secure. For asset servicers, there has never been a more important time to innovate to collaborate and create change.”
HSBC markets and securities services digital assets strategy global head John O’Neill said: “I’m excited by the forthcoming launch of our new custody service for digital assets, which will complement HSBC Orion, our platform for issuing digital assets, as well as our recent launch of tokenised physical gold.”
HSBC has collaborated with Metaco to use its institutional platform Harmonize for its new Tokenized security custody service for institutions.
Harmonize is a mission-critical orchestration platform for digital assets that consolidates the security and management of digital asset operations.
The platform facilitates asset-agnostic custody and trading to tokenization, staking and smart contract management,
Also, it easily connects institutions to the broad universe of decentralised finance (DeFi) and decentralised applications (Web3 Dapps).
Established in 2015, Metaco is a part of enterprise blockchain and crypto solutions provider Ripple, and supports digital asset operations of financial and non-financial institutions.
The company offers software and technology solutions for custodians, banks, regulated exchanges, and corporates, to store, trade, issue and manage any type of digital assets.
Metaco CEO and founder Adrien Treccani said: “Metaco is excited to be working with HSBC as it continues to explore the applications of DLT in asset creation and custody.
“Custody infrastructure such as Metaco’s Harmonize, which integrates with financial institutions’ existing systems, will be critical to how issuers and investors interact, as capital markets and assets in general continue to be represented on distributed ledgers.”
