“FRANKFURT. The Stuttgart Stock Exchange wants to organize the trading of digital securities across Europe and is targeting central securities depositories such as Clearstream, which is part of Deutsche Börse AG.
If, for example, the industrial company Siemens, which has already been active on the blockchain in the past, issues a bond there and it is traded, the securities can be transferred to the buyer via the new settlement platform Seturion and paid by the buyer ("settlement"). Instead of two days, this settlement process takes only a few minutes. "A cost reduction of up to 90 percent compared to current traditional securities trading is possible by mapping the settlement process on the blockchain in the digital securities business," Lidia Kurt told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Kurt, a Swiss national, will lead Seturion as CEO and will also remain head of BX Digital. This company, which is part of the Stuttgart Stock Exchange, launched in Switzerland in March 2025. It is the first to receive a license from the Swiss financial regulator FINMA to operate a DLT trading system. DLT stands for Distributed Ledger Technology, in which information is stored decentrally at multiple locations ("nodes"). The best-known application of DLT is blockchains. By storing data records on a blockchain, bonds and funds, for example, can now be issued and purchased at once.
Decentralized Custody of Innovative
If the securities are subsequently to be traded further, they must be transferred from the buyer's bank to the seller's bank. Securities custody is therefore important. Deutsche Börse, for example, is trying to centrally organize securities custody in the digital world as well. On D7, Deutsche Börse's blockchain platform for issuing digital bonds, which is particularly popular with the state-owned KfW bank, the electronic securities are currently stored centrally as a data record in Clearstream's crypto securities register. Decentralized custody in a crypto securities register is considered more innovative, as it integrates into a blockchain network with a decentralized cash register.
From the perspective of the Stuttgart Stock Exchange, central securities depositories make securities trading unnecessarilly fragmented and expensive. Almost every European country has exactly one central securities depository: Euroclear in France, Monte Titoli in Italy, or Clearstream in Germany and Luxembourg. "We want to leverage the advantages of blockchain, overcome national silos, and create a European capital market," says Matthias Voelkel, CEO of the Stuttgart Stock Exchange. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Voelkel and Kurt explain how they are designing Seturion as an "industry solution" to overcome the fragmented settlement landscape in Europe, achieve economies of scale in securities trading, and reduce regulatory hurdles.
Unlike its Swiss subsidiary BX, Seturion still lacks the required license. It is expected to receive it in the course of 2026. Also a long way off is the connection to Target 2, the payment system between banks and central banks in Europe. After all, Seturion can be used for digital securities on private and public blockchains, and on-chain payment for securities was successfully tested during the ECB trials last year. But even if the settlement process is well, the biggest challenge remains: How can continuous, liquid trading for the currently existing digital securities, with a volume of around €25 billion, be organized after the issuance?
Open to other market participants
So far, the fintech 21X is the only company in Germany to have received a comprehensive BaFin DLT license for trading and settlement of tokenized securities. Now Seturion is joining the ranks and is committed to an open architecture, meaning that all possible market participants can connect to this platform, even only to certain modules, thus retaining their proven processes. In principle, all trading venues in Europe could connect to Seturion and thus enable their market participants to trade digital securities – without having a DLT license themselves, which 21X received after an eighteen-month review by BaFin.
If trading venues connect to Seturion, banks and brokers can continue to use their existing connections. This means, for example, that the issuance of digital bonds does not have to be conducted via Seturion; other platforms can also be used. Capital market infrastructure, such as SWIAT, initiated by the savings bank securities house Deka, can be used. Banks and brokers can also connect directly to Seturion, as BX Digital and other trading venues of the Stuttgart Stock Exchange have already done. With this approach, the Stuttgart Stock Exchange aims to pragmatically leverage the advantages of tokenization, maximize trading volume, and move closer to a European capital market through a smoother settlement process.
National securities custodians, which must first report the country in which the security is currently located during a trade between buyer and seller, are to become obsolete. The model for this idea is the USA, with its frictionless, unified capital market. However, it could take some time before this concept becomes a reality in Europe. One reason for this, in the eyes of the Stuttgart Stock Exchange, is the still nationally fragmented settlement process in Europe. For digital securities, however, Seturion aims to remove a hurdle that still stands in the way of a unified European capital market. [1]
1. Börse Stuttgart startet europaweite Blockchainplattform: Banken, Broker und Handelsplätze sollen sich an Seturion anschließen. Sie können dann ohne Zentralverwahrer digitale Wertpapiere handeln. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; Frankfurt. 05 Sep 2025: 27.
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