Gesellschaft für Kryptoregisterführung mbH
The Gesellschaft für Kryptoregisterführung mbH, or GfK, is a crypto securities registrar in Willich, North Rhine-Westphalia. It enters bonds, fund units and registered shares in its crypto securities register under the German Electronic Securities Act, the eWpG, with or without a token on a blockchain.
BaFin supervises the company, which holds a license under section 32 of the German Banking Act to keep a crypto securities register under section 16 of the eWpG. Matthias Albrecht, Thomas Kramer and Michael Heinks run the GfK as managing directors, and the company has no tie to the Nuremberg market research group with the same abbreviation.
What the GfK does for issuers
The GfK advises issuers on the issue of electronic securities, enters the securities in its crypto securities register and keeps the register over their full term. For the legal and technical work and for distribution it works with a network of lawyers, technology providers and sales partners.
The company lists the services it does not offer: investment advice, custody of crypto assets or crypto securities, placement of securities, payment services, account management and paying agent services. The GfK publishes its own root certificate and a PDF signature certificate on its website, so recipients can verify the signature on its register documents.
Registered shares, fund units and bonds for medium-sized firms
The GfK names three use cases for its register, starting with the registered shares of stock corporations. A stock corporation can keep its shares in a crypto securities register, and the GfK expects secondary markets for such electronic shares to form under the DLT Pilot Regime.
Fund managers can issue fund units as crypto fund units, and medium-sized companies can raise money with tokenized bonds. According to the GfK, its lean issuance process makes an issue economical from a financing volume of 1 million euros.
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A warning about identity misuse
The GfK warns that unknown third parties use its company name and license details for fraudulent offers on the internet. The company runs only the websites it lists on its warning page, and it asks anyone in doubt to check an offer through the contact details given there.
The Düsseldorf registrar e-Sec has published a similar warning about a fake website with a crypto recovery service. Investors can check in the company database of BaFin whether a firm holds a license before they transfer money.
The GfK in the BVeW
The GfK was one of the seven founding members of the Bundesverband für elektronische Wertpapiere in April 2023, together with Cashlink, E-SEC, Smart Registry and Tangany. The association adopted a technical standard for token-based crypto securities in September 2023, so that other registrars can read tokens from a register they do not run.
Issuers who compare registrars find the steps of an issue under issuing tokenized securities in Germany. The legal basis for all of them is the Electronic Securities Act of 2021, which the Future Financing Act opened to electronic shares.
The GfK and Finance Loop
Medium-sized issuers, fund managers and banks in the Finance Loop network look at crypto securities as a way to raise smaller amounts without a classic bond issue. Finance Loop brings their finance, legal and operations teams together with registrars and platforms, so they can compare costs and the steps from term sheet to register entry.
Finance Loop is a professional network and has the goal of driving the institutional use of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, tokenization, stablecoins, and DeFi. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.