Swiss Bank Cité Gestion Is First Private Bank to Tokenize Its Shares

Independent Swiss Private Bank Cité Gestion, which was established in 2009, is using Taurus technology to tokenize its own shares. This move is a part of the company’s continuous attempts to grow its roots deeper into the world of blockchain technology.

It is the first time a private bank has rolled out shares as ledger-based securities under Swiss Law. It will collaborate with the digital assets company Taurus to authorize its tokenized shares along with handling the smart contract that develops the shares and offers asset servicing of its securities.

Tokenization, or the digitization of several asset categories, has been a popular movement among financial establishments as it allows TradFi participants to draw more investors via blockchain technology. In an official statement from Taurus, it was said that this new trend of digitization of private assets and securities has become the novel standard in the virtual asset industry.

On a similar note, investment management company Hamilton Lane (HLNE) announced that it will tokenize three of its funds in collaboration with the digital asset securities firm Securitize. The main vision behind tokenization for the firm was to help offer private market investment opportunities to institutional or ultra-high-net-worth investors.

The company also planned to offer qualified US-based investors access to funds offering exposure to direct equities, private credit, and secondary transactions, which will be tokenized through Securitize’s virtual transfer agency.

This announcement was also followed by another investment company KKR, revealing its plans in September to tokenize its Health Care Strategic Growth Fund on the Avalanche Blockchain.

The tokenization of Swiss firm Cité Gestion’s shares was processed while complying with the standards designated by the Capital Markets and Technology Association (CMTA), which is a Geneva-based non-profit organization.

The tokens were built using CMTA, an open-source smart contract offered by the CMTA and particularly committed to the tokenization of securities. Taurus, which was founded in April 2018, acquired a securities license the year before from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority to deliver investors and banks the ability to trade several assets, which included tokenized securities.

The firm has had a long history of tokenization as it has till now, been involved in 15 projects that comprise equity, private debt, and structured products from companies in Switzerland and Europe.

In December last year, Cité Gestion reached an agreement to unite its business with the multi-family investment office Sartus Capital. Sartus Capital, on the other hand, was established in 2016 and has its headquarters in Geneva.