Case Study: How Volksbank Uses ONINO's Digital Securities Infrastructure

When a regulated regional bank becomes both an investor in and a customer of a digital securities platform, it signals something more substantial than a commercial partnership. It reflects an operational conviction: the infrastructure is ready, the regulatory framework is workable, and the business case for digital securities at the banking level is real. The partnership between ONINO and Volksbank eG Villingen-Schwenningen is exactly that kind of signal.

Volksbank as Investor and Customer: Why the Dual Role Matters

Volksbank eG Villingen-Schwenningen, a prominent regional cooperative bank in Baden-Württemberg, engaged with ONINO over more than a year before the partnership was formally announced. During that period, the relationship moved beyond a standard vendor-client arrangement. Volksbank took a position as an investor in ONINO while simultaneously deploying the platform as a customer to serve its own clients and financing operations.

This dual role carries specific significance in the context of financial infrastructure due diligence. A bank that has examined a platform closely enough to invest in it has, by definition, subjected it to the kind of regulatory and operational scrutiny that external validation alone cannot replicate. For other banks evaluating digital securities infrastructure, the Volksbank relationship provides a concrete reference point: a regulated institution with BaFin-supervised obligations made a commercial and financial commitment to the same platform it recommends to its clients.

Volksbank's positioning within the regional German banking ecosystem also matters. As a Gestalterbank, the institution has an established mandate to connect local businesses with financing solutions. That network, built over decades of regional corporate banking, becomes a distribution layer for ONINO's digital securities capabilities.

What Digital Securities Infrastructure Enables for Banks

The distinction between consumer digital banking and digital securities infrastructure is frequently blurred in general coverage, but it is operationally significant. Consumer digital banking refers to the delivery of retail banking services through digital channels. Digital securities infrastructure refers to the technical and compliance stack that enables a bank to issue, manage, and distribute regulated financial instruments in digital form.

For a regional bank like Volksbank, adopting digital securities infrastructure opens three distinct operational capabilities.

The first is digital instrument issuance. A bank can originate financing instruments, including subordinated loans (Nachrangdarlehen), profit participation rights (Genussrechte), or debt securities, and issue them as digital tokens on a regulated register. This reduces the administrative overhead of paper-based issuance and creates instruments that are transferable and trackable without manual intervention.

The second is client-facing product expansion. A bank that operates a digital securities platform can offer its corporate clients access to capital markets infrastructure that would previously have required a full investment bank relationship. SME clients seeking growth financing can access a structured, compliant digital issuance process through their existing banking relationship.

The third is secondary market participation. Digital securities issued on a compliant platform can, where regulatory conditions allow, be traded on secondary markets. For bank clients holding positions in tokenized instruments, this creates liquidity pathways that traditional private placements do not provide.

The Operational Use Case: From Announcement to Platform

The Volksbank partnership entered its active phase after more than a year of joint development and evaluation. The collaboration covers three operational areas: marketing and client outreach, project origination through Volksbank's corporate network, and deployment of ONINO's platform for specific financing transactions.

On the project origination side, Volksbank's relationships with regional businesses in Baden-Württemberg provide a pipeline of potential issuers. Companies in manufacturing, real estate, and SME lending that work with Volksbank as their primary banking partner are introduced to digital securities as a financing option alongside traditional instruments. This is not a replacement for existing bank products but an extension of the financing menu available to clients who meet the eligibility criteria for a regulated digital securities offering.

The platform deployment component means that qualifying transactions are structured and executed through ONINO's issuance infrastructure, with Volksbank providing the client relationship and ONINO providing the technical and compliance layer. This division of responsibility reflects the two-layer model that characterizes most successful bank-platform partnerships in the digital securities space: the bank retains the client relationship and the regulatory standing; the platform provides the operational efficiency and technical capability that would be impractical to build in-house.

What Other Regional Banks Can Learn From This Model

The Volksbank case illustrates a broader pattern emerging in the German and European banking market. Regional banks, particularly cooperative and savings banks, face structural pressure to offer more sophisticated financing products to their SME client base without incurring the compliance and technology costs of building proprietary infrastructure. Digital securities platforms, when properly regulated and integrated, offer a route to that capability.

The key conditions that made the Volksbank partnership viable are replicable. The platform must operate within the applicable regulatory framework, including eWpG and MiFID II. The bank must have a client network with genuine demand for structured financing instruments beyond standard bank loans. And the partnership structure must clearly delineate regulatory responsibilities so that both parties operate within their licensed scope.

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FAQ

How has digital banking changed traditional banking practices?

Consumer digital banking has shifted retail service delivery to mobile and online channels. Digital securities infrastructure represents a separate development: it changes how banks originate, issue, and manage financial instruments, not just how they deliver services to retail customers. The two operate on different layers of the banking stack.

How can traditional banks compete with digital banks?

Regional and cooperative banks hold structural advantages in corporate and SME banking that digital-only banks cannot easily replicate. Digital securities infrastructure allows these banks to extend their product range into structured financing and digital capital markets without displacing their core relationship model.

What is the advantage of digital securities over traditional bank financing instruments?

Digital securities reduce administrative overhead, enable fractional investment and broader investor access, create programmable distribution logic through smart contracts, and allow secondary market trading where regulatory conditions permit.

What does a bank need to offer digital securities to its clients?

A regulated infrastructure partner operating under eWpG and MiFID II, a client pipeline with demand for structured financing, appropriate internal processes for onboarding and documentation, and a clear regulatory framework for the bank's own role in the issuance and distribution process.

Summary

• Volksbank eG Villingen-Schwenningen is both an investor in and a customer of ONINO, representing strong institutional validation of the platform

• The partnership covers client origination, marketing, and active deployment of ONINO's infrastructure for Volksbank's corporate client base

• Digital securities infrastructure enables banks to offer structured financing instruments digitally without building proprietary technology

• The Volksbank model is replicable by other regional and cooperative banks across Germany and Europe

• The dual investor-customer relationship reflects over a year of due diligence and operational evaluation before formal commitment