UAE digital bank to utilize Swiss Fintech Taurus for digital asset infrastructure

Taurus SA (“Taurus”), a Swiss FinTech that provides enterprise-grade digital asset infrastructure to create, custody, and trade any digital assets, has partnered with UAE’s Zand Bank, to cover all aspects of digital asset infrastructure including custody, tokenization and blockchain connectivity.

Read more: Taurus integrates with Polygon to expand tokenization capabilities for financial institutions

Michael Chan, CEO at Zand, said, “Our partnership with Taurus signifies a new benchmark for digital asset services, marking a new era of banking excellence where security, versatility, and client-centric solutions converge to redefine the very essence of the digital economy.”

Zand Bank will offer digital asset custody and wallet services

Under this agreement, Zand, UAE’s first digital bank, will leverage Taurus’ market-leading integrated custody and tokenization solutions to expand its offering in the field of digital assets, including cryptocurrencies, tokenized securities, and digital currencies.

Backed by institutional investors such as Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Arab Bank Switzerland, Lombard Odier, and Pictet Group, Taurus raised $65 million in 2023.

According to Taurus HQ, the core of the collaboration between Zand and Taurus is the provision of best-in-class institutional-grade custody for digital assets. Zand will utilize the Taurus-PROTECT™ wallet solution, ensuring secure storage for cryptocurrencies, NFTs, tokenized securities, and digital currencies. With on-premise deployment in the UAE, Zand meets the highest security and compliance standards in banking.

Leveraging Taurus-PROTECT™, Zand can implement defense-in-depth security on its custodial wallets with multi-layered security controls, including, hot and cold HSM environments for optimizing efficiency and security, programmable rules, and robotic process automation (RPA) features.

UAE Zand Bank to offer tokenization solutions

UAE Zand bank will also leverage the Taurus-CAPITAL™ tokenization solution to issue and perform asset servicing for any type of tokenized financial and real-world assets. Zand will be able to deploy and manage the lifecycle of any smart contract standard across both public and private blockchains.

Also Read: Swiss regulator FINMA approves Taurus for retail offering of tokenized securities

Bashir Kazour, Managing Director at Taurus, said:

It’s a privilege to assist Zand, a leader in digital banking, in launching their digital asset strategy in line with all applicable regulations. I look forward to supporting Zand in delivering landmark transactions in the area of tokenized assets.” – Bashir.

The partnership between Zand Bank and Taurus comes in the wake of the UAE Central Bank (CBUAE) publishing its stablecoin regulations allowing certain UAE entities to deal with AED stablecoins and foreign-regulated stablecoins.

According to the CBUAE, a bank may not act as a Payment Token Issuer, but may, subject to the licensing and other requirements of this regulation, set up a subsidiary, affiliate or other related entity to perform this activity.