Deutsche Bank and Ant International have announced a strategic partnership to provide more comprehensive payment solutions for businesses in Europe and Asia.

The bank will collaborate with Ant International’s embedded finance unit on a series of global treasury management and cross-border payment innovations.

Deutsche Bank will be the first German bank to facilitate Ant International’s blockchain-based real-time treasury management platform to enable real-time fund transfers between Ant International’s intragroup entities. This will enable more efficient and transparent global treasury management for Ant.

In addition, the two sides will explore cross-border payment innovations, including tokenized bank deposits, stablecoins and Ant International’s Falcon Time-Series Transformer ( TST ) FX Model, to help Ant International and its clients reduce FX-related costs and risks.

The companies will also further look into the applications of stablecoins for global payments, including real-time cross-border treasury management for Ant’s entities, reserve management, and on-ramp and off-ramp services.

Deutsche Bank will also work with Antom, a merchant payment and digitization services provider under Ant, to extend Antom’s solutions for merchants in EMEA, enabling them to be seamlessly integrated with more payment solutions.

The bank will also support WorldFirst’s suite of payments-related solutions for SMEs in e-commerce and cross-border trade, including account collections, payments and FX services.

Ole Matthiessen, head of corporate bank, APAC & MEA, and global head of cash management, at Deutsche Bank, says: “Given the dynamic landscape of financial services, we see great potential to collaborate with Ant International, as one of the world’s leading financial technology providers, to develop innovative payment solutions and transform the future of treasury management.”

Kelvin Li, general manager of platform tech at Ant International, adds: “By combining our digital and payment capabilities with a global leading financial institution, we aim to deliver enhanced payment experiences that meet the evolving needs of global businesses and consumers.”