Today Metaco announced that the Union Bank of the Philippines will use its Metaco Harmonize digital asset suite. The deal involves the bank using IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Crypto Services, which enables banks to control keys using highly secure hardware. Last year Metaco partnered with IBM to incorporate the solution into its offerings.
Metaco is best known as a digital asset custody firm and counts Standard Chartered as an early investor. Banks using its services include BBVA, DBS and Gazprombank.
In terms of the Metaco Harmonize solution, it’s an umbrella product that integrates several other Metaco offerings. These include a custody solution that allows for sub-custodians, trading of cryptocurrencies, digital assets and DeFi, and the ability to issue and manage tokens.
On the latter point, Union Bank previously partnered in 2020 with Metaco investor Standard Chartered to trial the tokenization of corporate bonds. Earlier in 2020, Union Bank partnered with the Philippines government using blockchain to manage treasury bonds targeted at retail investors. It is one of the earliest banks to get involved in enterprise blockchain, initially using it to help rural banks in a digital transformation project.
“We have the passion for meaningful and sustainable reinvention,” said Henry Aguda, UnionBank’s Senior EVP and CTO. He said Metaco and Union Bank have a common vision, which in Union Bank’s case is “customer centricity driven by emerging technologies and innovation.”