Societe Generale Forge (SocGen Forge), the digital asset arm of the large French bank, received a digital asset license in late September. That’s according to French securities regulator Autorité des Marchés Financiers, which released an updated list of licensed companies last week, as first reported by The Block.

The SocGen division is best known for playing a leading role in the European Investment Bank’s €100 million ($98 million) bond issue.

The license includes custody, purchase/sale of legal tender digital assets and trading of digital assets against other digital assets. The company signed an agreement with digital asset custody technology provider Metaco in late June. Caisse des Depots, the state-owned bank, received a digital asset custody license a year ago.

Instead of cryptocurrencies, SocGen Forge focuses squarely on tokenized financial assets such as stocks and bonds. This was confirmed last week by the company’s deputy CEO, David Durouchoux, referring to them as MiFID security tokens. He said that he envisions the role of tokenizing real-world assets, such as real estate, being played by specialized asset managers and fintechs.

While other institutions lean toward authoritative ledger, SocGen Forge is interested in public blockchains. Durouchoux outlined the benefits, including globally accessible public blockchains and a pay-as-you-go nature rather than having a large upfront investment. For customers, the benefits are automation and the provision of value-added services.

Durouchou mentioned the possibility of using digital instruments as collateral. That’s something he’s exploring with the MakerDAO protocol.

During 2020, as part of a French wholesale CBDC experiment, Forge was responsible for helping the major bank issue a €40 million secured bond on the Ethereum blockchain. It is now exploring refinancing by taking out a $30 million loan in the DAI stablecoin with the tokenized covered bonds as collateral. SocGen Forge would lend the money to the main bank.

From a MakerDAO perspective, you want to diversify the assets that back your stablecoin. It recently entered into a $100 million financing of loan participations with US bank Huntingdon Valley.