On 05.05.2021, the Finance Com­mit­tee of the Ger­man par­lia­ment, chaired by Kat­ja Hes­sel (FDP), announced its plans to intro­duce dig­i­tal secu­ri­ties. With the new law, the leg­is­la­tor aims to make Ger­many fit for the future. The eWpG is intend­ed to make emis­sions more cost-effec­tive and innovative.

„With the estab­lish­ment of dig­i­tal secu­ri­ties, one of the cen­tral build­ing blocks of the Ger­man gov­ern­men­t’s blockchain strat­e­gy is being imple­ment­ed,” explained Sarah Ryglews­ki, State Sec­re­tary at the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry of Finance.

Investors will soon have access to a new form of dig­i­tal investment:

In the future, bonds and fund units can be issued on a pure­ly dig­i­tal basis. So-called cryp­to funds based on decen­tral­ized blockchain tech­nol­o­gy are to fol­low by the end of the year.

The Ger­man leg­is­la­tor here­by fol­lows the exam­ple of France and Lux­em­bourg, on the way to dema­te­ri­al­iz­ing secu­ri­ties law.

The bill, which was approved by CDU/CSU, SPD and FDP, is rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing the issuance of secu­ri­ties, by mak­ing it pos­si­ble for cer­tifi­cates to be issued dig­i­tal­ly. Until now, it was only pos­si­ble to issue secu­ri­ties with phys­i­cal cer­tifi­cates. The new law pro­vides for two types of elec­tron­ic secu­ri­ties reg­istries: cen­tral­ized secu­ri­ties reg­istries and decen­tral­ized cryp­to secu­ri­ties reg­istries, typ­i­cal­ly based on dis­trib­uted ledger tech­nol­o­gy (DLT). The reg­is­ter of a cen­tral secu­ri­ties reg­istry can only be a secu­ri­ties depos­i­to­ry or a cus­to­di­an bank des­ig­nat­ed by the issuer. In con­trast, the reg­is­trars of decen­tral­ized cryp­to secu­ri­ties reg­istries require a license as a finan­cial ser­vices insti­tu­tion. In the inter­est of investor pro­tec­tion, the cryp­to secu­ri­ties reg­is­ter must be main­tained on a tam­per-proof record­ing sys­tem in which data is logged in time sequence and stored in a man­ner pro­tect­ed against unau­tho­rized dele­tion and sub­se­quent modification.

The explic­it men­tion of the Blockchain-Tech­nol­o­gy in the new law shows that the leg­is­la­tor has rec­og­nized its rel­e­vance for the fur­ther eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment of Ger­many.