SWIAT GmbH (“SWIAT”), a German fintech company specialising in the development of blockchain software and a tokenisation platform for an open, decentralised financial market infrastructure, has received permission from BaFin to maintain and operate crypto-securities registers.
The German Electronic Securities Act (eWpG), introduced in mid-2021, created the possibility of issuing securities without a physical certificate by registering them in an electronic securities register. This register can also be operated on the basis of DLT systems ("blockchain") and is accordingly called a "crypto-securities register". It is used for the initial issuance of electronic securities. Crypto-securities register operators regularly ensure that the register is functioning properly and are subject to special regulatory obligations. Maintaining and operating a crypto-securities register is a financial service that requires a licence.
In addition to its established software development for tokenisation and blockchain-based issuance of securities, SWIAT is now also able to offer the financial services associated with the issuance of digital securities. This milestone allows institutional partners of the fintech company, such as custodian banks, to not only obtain all technological and financial market-regulated services for the issuance of digital securities from SWIAT from a single source, but also automatically gain access to SWIAT's digital ecosystem for the settlement and trading of digital assets, which meets capital market, compliance and regulatory requirements.
SWIAT has already worked closely with custodian banks such as BayernLB, DekaBank, DZ BANK and LBBW in its ecosystem in the past. This cooperation enables issuers to potentially reach all investors who use these custodian banks for their securities accounts. In conjunction with the reliable and extensively proven SWIAT software, custodian banks now benefit from the permission granted to operate crypto-securities registers. In the future, they will be able to scale their services much more easily thanks to fully digitised process chains and a smaller number of contractual partners.
Henning Vollbehr, CEO of SWIAT, says: “For SWIAT, the BaFin approval is another important step towards a global ecosystem for the settlement and trading of digital assets that ensures efficiency, security and interoperability across all market participants. With our crypto-securities register offering, we are tremendously simplifying the process for issuers and financial institutions and further expanding the SWIAT ecosystem.”
Felix Miederer, COO of SWIAT, adds: “We are delighted to have received BaFin approval to operate a crypto-securities register within such a short time frame. The process with BaFin was open, transparent and based on trust. The grant that has now been given is testament to the further expansion of our services and an important milestone on the path to developing SWIAT into an integrated financial services provider.”
SWIAT’s vision is to create a single global standard for processing blockchain-based securities. A key feature of the SWIAT ecosystem is that capital market, compliance and regulatory aspects are considered in the conception phase, thereby offering security and compatibility with regulatory requirements.
SWIAT forecasts digital assets to grow in importance globally in the coming years as tokenisation increases. In Europe, SWIAT estimates that an open decentralised financial market will grow more than 60 per cent per year (CAGR) to more than €3 trillion by 2030.