Cité Gestion, an independent Swiss private bank, has become the first private bank to tokenize its own shares using Taurus technology.
The bank has partnered with digital assets firm Taurus to issue its tokenized shares, as well as manage the smart contract that creates the shares and perform asset servicing of its securities. The move will allow private banks to attract more investors by using blockchain technology.
“Taurus believes that digitization of private assets and securities is becoming the new standard in the digital asset industry,” Taurus said in a statement.
The bank carried out the tokenization in accordance with standards established by the Capital Markets and Technology Association (CMTA), a Geneva-based not-for-profit organization.
The tokens were created using the CMTAT, an open-source smart contract published by the CMTA and specifically dedicated to the tokenization of securities, and recorded on Ethereum.
Taurus, which obtained a securities license last year from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, has been involved in the tokenization of 15 companies so far, covering equity, private debt, and structured products from firms in Switzerland as well as Europe.
This move follows similar actions from investment management firm Hamilton Lane and investment giant KKR, which have also announced plans to tokenize their funds to make private market investments available to a broader set of investors.
