Breaking: Germany’s Biggest Federal Bank Partners Bitpanda To Offer Crypto Custody

The wave of crypto adoption by TradFi continues to pick pace globally, especially amid excitement surrounding Bitcoin halving. In a major breakthrough, Germany’s biggest federal bank Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) also revealed plans to offer crypto custody services in partnership with crypto exchange Bitpanda.

Germany’s Top Bank and Bitpanda to Offer Crypto Custody

Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, Germany’s biggest federal bank, and the Bitpanda crypto exchange to provide cryptocurrency custody services in the second half of 2024, reported Bloomberg.

Germany’s top federal bank and the largest crypto exchange in the country coming together is a major development for crypto adoption ahead MiCA regulation.  Austrian unicorn company Bitpanda received a crypto license from Germany’s financial regulator (BaFin) in November 2022 to become one of the few companies to get crypto custody and proprietary trading license.

LBBW and Bitpanda will offer crypto custody to institutional and corporate clients, according to a statement by the companies on April 15. LBBW is owned by some of Germany’s savings banks such as the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg and the city of Stuttgart. It has nearly €333 billion ($355 billion) in assets.

“The demand from our corporate customers for digital assets is increasing. We are convinced that crypto assets will establish themselves as a building block for further business models. With this cooperation, we are creating the technical and regulatory basis at an early stage to best support the individual crypto strategies of our corporate customers,” said Jürgen Harengel, managing director of corporate banking at LBBW.

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Banks’ Active Participation in Crypto

German banks and asset managers’ interest in crypto assets are increasingly active ahead of EU’s MiCA regulations taking effect later this year.

In March, Germany stock exchange firm Deutsche Boerse launched a fully regulated crypto trading platform Deutsche Boerse Digital Exchange (DBDX). The aim is to offer a fully regulated and secure environment for institutional trading, settlement, and custody for this digital asset class.

Also, Germany has massive demand for Bitcoin and altcoins from retail and institutional investors. Electronic securities trading platform Xetra has been offering crypto ETP and ETN for companies such as 21Shares and WisdomTree.

A recent research by KPMG shows German investors are actively buying crypto assets as trust returns ahead rise in Bitcoin price.

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