LevelField taps METACO’s digital asset custody platform ahead of US bank charter
LevelField is comprised of career bankers who deeply understand the importance of compliance and security.
LevelField Financial has partnered with METACO as the US-based crypto-focused financial services firm is in the process of acquiring a federally chartered bank in the United States.
Founded in 2018, LevelField blends digital banking, securities, and digital assets in a platform for digital and traditional assets that leverages the strengths of the U.S. banking system.
To launch its digital asset offering, LevelField will use METACO’s digital asset custody and orchestration platform, Harmonize, that will help clients to securely store, trade, and settle digital assets.
Built in partnership with Tier 1 banks and offering high security and compliance standards, the highly scalable platform will allow LevelField to operate in the digital assets sector and to further expand its offering in the future.
Bank-grade security and compliance for custody and management of digital assets
The partnership will allow LevelField to leverage the confidential computing capabilities of IBM’s digital asset infrastructure via METACO’s institutional digital asset management operations on IBM Cloud.
Harmonize is supported by IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Services, which will put LevelField in a position of scaling to millions of wallets, while maintaining control over private keys for risk management.
IBM’s Digital Asset Infrastructure helps custodians achieve greater results when using METACO’s Harmonize platform, including enhanced scalability, security, and compliance.
IBM’s cloud-based crypto solution is designed to enable METACO Vaults to store encrypted keys externally in a database while affording the protections of IBM’s FIPS 140-2 Level 4 rated hardware security modules (HSM).
METACO’s integration with IBM also reduces risks of malicious code insertion during Harmonize deployments and address unauthorized rule manipulation by working to make policies on the platform tamper proof.
Custodians retain physical control of the root of trust of the assets and the policies that govern management of the assets, through the IBM HSM Smartcards.
Seamus Donoghue, VP of Strategic Alliances at METACO commented: “We’re pleased to support LevelField in realizing its vision of uniting digital assets with traditional finance to create the most trusted banking platform of the future. Harmonize provides bank-grade security and compliance for the custody and management of digital assets, as well as the agility for innovative firms like LevelField to go-to-market and scale quickly. With a flexible governance policy framework that can be applied to any type of digital asset transaction, a no-single-point-of-failure model, and the optionality to expand and offer any type of digital asset services, Harmonize provides a highly secure and flexible foundation for LevelField to manage its digital asset operations, both today and well into the future.”
Michael Clayton, CTO, LevelField, said: “LevelField is comprised of career bankers who deeply understand the importance of compliance and security. We searched for the platform that would enable us to meet our rigorous standards for security and compliance, while also giving us the flexibility to grow our digital asset business in any direction. METACO’s Harmonize orchestration platform, supported by IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Services, is the ideal solution and something which may become the gold-standard in the industry. This infrastructure enables us to demonstrate our compliance and the highest levels of security no matter what area of digital assets we expand into.”
