Historical series Itaú Unibanco creates Itaú Digital Assets
With the objective of democratizing investments, the business unit will provide tokenization and custody services for digital assets.
July 2022 – Itaú Unibanco announces the creation of Itaú Digital Assets, a new business unit responsible for the process of transforming assets into digital representations, so-called “tokens”. The objective is to democratize and improve accessibility to investment products.
This new business is the result of the maturation of technologies that the bank has been studying since 2015, such as Blockchain – an important pillar that provides for the creation of secure and decentralized networks that will support Web 3.0, the new wave of the internet’s evolution that is based on the concept of digital property.
In addition, the launch of Itaú Digital Assets is in line with the bank’s digitalization process and the trends that point to a future in which a relevant fraction of financial assets will be tokenized.
This new area will be part of Itaú Unibanco’s Global Markets, Treasury, and Latin America department, led by Pedro Lorenzini. “Our ambition is to expand our ability to serve clients. And Itaú Digital Assets paves the way for the increase and diversification of the product offer, in a movement fully connected to the bank’s digitalization process,” says Lorenzini.
The tokenized assets will allow investors on any scale to participate in financial investments that are already part of Itaú’s portfolio, but which today are restricted to high-income or institutional clients, through a fractional offering. “The platform will issue, distribute, and custody crypto-assets (tokens) and integrate them with Itaú’s other products and channels,” explains Vanessa Fernandes, global head of Itaú Digital Assets.
In addition to promoting diversification with alternative investment products and making traditional investment options more accessible to the public, “the use of new technologies should simplify operations, reduce costs, and provide better service rates for customers,” says Vanessa.
Following the global trend, the credit market was chosen to have the first tokenized products, considering the bank’s expertise in the segment and the related low risk.