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(Kitco News) - Amid the ongoing global banking crisis, banks in Latin America and Europe continue to move toward the integration of blockchain technology and digital assets while banks in the U.S. move to cut off access for the industry.
BTG Pactual, the largest investment bank in Latin America, has announced the launch of its first stablecoin, BTG Dol, which is designed to maintain a 1:1 parity with the U.S. dollar and facilitate interactions between the traditional financial system and the growing digital economy.
BTG Dol was launched through Mynt, BTG Pactual’s crypto platform, and offers its holders “the opportunity to 'dollarize' part of their equity in a simple, efficient, and secure manner,” the press release said.
"Once again, we are innovating in using financial technology in our clients' benefit,” said André Portilho, Head of Digital Assets at BTG Pactual. “When buying BTG Dol, investors have access to an easier, safer and smarter way to invest in dollars.”
The new stablecoin will be custodied by BTG Pactual, which will also provide the security framework for BTG Dol, including due diligence, money laundering prevention, and compliance processes. BTG Pactual has also guaranteed the backing of the stablecoin and will manage its reserves.
“We recently launched eight new assets, we already have 22 cryptocurrencies on the platform, and now we have our own stablecoin,” said Marcel Monteiro, head of operations at Mynt. “This shows that the Bank trusts technology and will continue with its commitment to offering new innovative digital products and services, with the solidity and trust that are BTG's hallmark.”
BTG Pacutal customers can now purchase the stablecoin through the BTG Pactual investment platform and on the Mynt app, with the minimum investment starting at R$100.
VP Bank partners with Metaco
Across the Atlantic in Europe, VP Bank, one of the largest banks in Liechtenstein, has announced a new partnership with digital asset infrastructure provider Metaco as the bank looks to consolidate its tokenization and digital asset custody operations.
According to the press release, the collaboration will utilize Metaco’s Harmonize platform to allow VP Bank “the optionality to expand its digital asset custody and tokenization services beyond art and physical collector items, such as being able to support tokenized financial assets or minting, burning and storage of tokens.”
VP Bank has locations across Europe, Asia, and the British Virgin Islands, and had over CHF$46 billion ($50.8 billion) in assets under management at the end of 2022. The bank has been active in the digital asset space since 2021 and has focused its strategy on the tokenization and custody of collectible physical assets such as jewels, paintings, watches and sculptures.
VP Bank’s goal with its crypto platform is to create “a future-oriented offering combined with the customary security standards of a regulated bank.”
“We are committed to rethink wealth management by combining traditional banking with digital ecosystems to create whole new services and opportunities for our clients,” said Marcel Fleisch, chief product officer at VP Bank. “By partnering with Metaco to offer a secure and scalable platform to tokenize and custody all types of financial, digital and real-world assets, we take a new major step towards building VP Bank's foundation of the future.”
The firm has partnered with Metaco to help it develop a scalable and secure digital asset IT infrastructure that allows it to capitalize on new business opportunities when issuing, holding and managing digital assets on behalf of its clients.
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For the past five months, VP Bank and Metaco have been working to integrate Harmonize into the bank’s core banking system, and the integration is now fully complete. This enables VP Bank to scale its commercial offerings to millions of custody accounts, which will be protected by a combination of multi-party computation and hardware encryption technologies.
“The bank-grade orchestration capabilities of the Harmonize platform enables the secure management of a range of digital asset use cases, allowing banks and financial institutions to satisfy demand for new asset classes and expand their business model in any direction,” said Seamus Donoghue, chief growth officer at Metaco.
Metaco is one of the more active crypto companies in Europe and has been working on expanding its presence over the past year. In January, the firm partnered with German lender DekaBank, a leading provider of securities services and capital market solutions to the German Savings Banks Finance Group, to develop the bank's digital asset custody and management operations. The platform is scheduled for release in 2024.
Also in January, Metaco partnered with the London-based cryptocurrency exchange Archax to secure its new digital asset custody service and deploy it on the IBM cloud. And in February, Metaco collaborated with German asset manager DZ Bank to help the bank include digital currencies in its asset management services.
