Crypto-as-a-Service for Banks: Sygnum vs Boerse Stuttgart Digital vs Bitpanda vs Crypto Finance vs Kraken vs Own Custody
A bank that adds crypto trading and custody to its own app rents them from a licensed provider, runs custody software itself, or combines the two. Four of the 20 live banks in the table below have said they hold the keys themselves: BBVA, Zürcher Kantonalbank, Commerzbank and KBC. The last three buy brokerage or trading from Crypto Finance.
Reviewed by Luis Medeiros, Field CTO at Protofire · Updated October 2026
Crypto-as-a-service for banks is a licensed provider's crypto trading and custody, run by API inside the bank's own app. The provider works behind the bank or serves the client directly as a disclosed counterparty; a bank can instead run custody software itself. Of the 20 live banks in the table, 15 use one of the five providers compared here. Keep the client and rent the rest: Sygnum (most named Swiss bank clients), Boerse Stuttgart Digital (German cooperative banks) or Crypto Finance (often trading alone). Leave the client contract with the provider: Kraken Embed, or Bitpanda under 'Our license'. Hold the keys yourself: run custody software in house, if the bank can carry MiCA's custody liability and 24/7 key operations.
Protofire sells the engineering that connects a licensed provider's crypto rail, or custody software the bank runs, to the bank's app and core banking, and can run it after launch. That gives us a commercial interest in every route compared here, since a bank on any of them would need integration work we could be paid for. Own custody needs the most of that work, and two of the six verdicts below point to it. We hold no license under MiCA or Swiss law, custody no client assets and sell none of the products in the tables. Licenses, register dates and the Article 60 notifications that let a bank or other regulated firm offer crypto services without a separate MiCA license come from ESMA's interim MiCA register (CSV file of 16 October 2026). Launch dates come from the banks' and providers' own releases, read on 18 October 2026, or from dated trade press where no primary source exists. Key-management models, from multisig to multi-party computation (MPC) and hardware security modules (HSM), are compared in crypto custody models, and the rest of the series is in our decision guides.
How do the five providers and own custody compare?
6 options side by side: scroll the table sideways to see all of them.
Which providers sell crypto to banks, and what does own custody take?
Sygnum
- +A FINMA-licensed bank since August 2019, with an EU entity, Sygnum Europe AG, authorized as a MiCA crypto-asset service provider by Liechtenstein's FMA on 26 June 2026
- +More named Swiss bank clients than any other provider here: PostFinance, Zuger Kantonalbank, BancaStato, Bordier and PKB have launched on it
- +Bank-to-bank shape: the partner bank keeps the client and the app, and Sygnum holds the client assets in custody, off its own balance sheet
- +More than spot trading: custody, brokerage, staking (PostFinance added Ethereum staking in January 2025), lending and collateral management, through bank-to-bank APIs
- −Its named bank clients are almost all Swiss; its EU entity received its MiCA authorization only in June 2026
- −Luzerner Kantonalbank combined Sygnum with Fireblocks and Wyden and built up in-house expertise, so not every name on the list is a full rental
Sygnum is a Swiss bank that supplies crypto custody and trading to other banks, which keep the client and the app. It received its FINMA banking and securities dealer license in August 2019, and its B2B banking page describes the bank-to-bank model: "Sygnum supports over 20 partner banks in private, retail and universal banking globally". The page says it holds client assets off its balance sheet and offers partner banks custody, brokerage, staking, transfers, tokenization, lending and collateral management through dedicated bank-to-bank APIs. Coverage of Sygnum's EU launch in June 2026 cites more than 25 partner banks, including PostFinance; Sygnum does not publish the full list. ESMA's register lists Sygnum Europe AG as authorized by Liechtenstein's FMA on 26 June 2026 for custody, exchange and transfer services.
The named launches span five years. PostFinance launched trading and custody for 11 cryptocurrencies through Sygnum on 21 February 2024 and added Ethereum staking in January 2025. Zuger Kantonalbank's clients could buy and trade crypto in its e-banking and mobile app from 2 October 2023. Sygnum's June 2024 partner list quotes Bordier as "the first bank to launch on Sygnum's B2B platform in early 2021", and PKB's clients could buy, hold and trade crypto from their fiat deposits from March 2024.
BancaStato, the cantonal bank of Ticino, went live in July 2026 with bitcoin, ether, litecoin and solana. Luzerner Kantonalbank chose a three-vendor setup of Sygnum, Fireblocks and Wyden, integrated into its core banking system, and opened crypto trading and custody in its e-banking in early March 2024, a setup between renting and running custody itself.
Boerse Stuttgart Digital
- +Its custody company, Boerse Stuttgart Digital Custody GmbH, has held a MiCA authorization from BaFin since 17 January 2025, and EUWAX AG and Tradias GmbH are notified for trading services
- +Holds the coins for DZ BANK's meinKrypto, the cooperative banks' service in the VR Banking App, live at the first local bank since May 2026
- +Sells the supplier shape outright: it says it operates 'discreetly in the background' and offers white-label trading and custody within the partner's corporate identity
- +Several layers from one group: brokerage through EUWAX, a multilateral trading facility, custody directly or as sub-custodian, and staking
- −Concentration: since the tradias merger closed on 5 August 2026, the trading supplier behind flatexDEGIRO and dwpbank and the custodian behind meinKrypto belong to one group
- −Its named bank programs are German; elsewhere the named clients are institutions such as Intesa Sanpaolo and SG-FORGE, and a Slovenian broker
Boerse Stuttgart Digital sells crypto brokerage, custody and staking to banks and brokers, which offer them under their own brand. The merger release of 5 August 2026, when the tradias merger closed, says "Boerse Stuttgart Digital is the name of the business unit, tradias becomes the brand for trading". ESMA's register lists Boerse Stuttgart Digital Custody GmbH as a MiCA crypto-asset service provider authorized by BaFin on 17 January 2025, and EUWAX AG and Tradias GmbH under Article 60 notifications. Its services page offers everything "from white label solutions to fully customized brokerage, exchange and custody services", and its custody page says "we operate discreetly in the background", with setups for "a licensed institution looking for sub-custody".
Germany's two bank groups use it differently. In the cooperative banks' meinKrypto, built by Atruvia and DZ BANK inside the VR Banking App, Boerse Stuttgart Digital holds custody and EUWAX executes for bitcoin, ether, litecoin and cardano. VR-Bank Würzburg became the first local cooperative bank on meinKrypto on 5 May 2026. For the savings banks the split is reversed: Boerse Stuttgart Digital supplies liquidity to DekaBank through its institutional brokerage, while the Deka offer covers "the entire value chain, from trading and custody to the front end".
The merger release also names Intesa Sanpaolo and SG-FORGE as institutional clients, and flatexDEGIRO and dwpbank as clients of tradias. flatexDEGIRO's crypto trading uses tradias for pricing, Tangany for custody and Wyden for routing and settlement. Outside Germany, the Slovenian broker Ilirika agreed in November 2025 to embed its brokerage and custody. The August 2026 press kit lists 71 tradable cryptocurrencies and more than EUR 5 billion in assets under custody, both company figures.
Bitpanda Enterprise
- +Offers both shapes: under 'Our license' Bitpanda's regulated entities provide the service, under 'Bring-your-own license' the bank runs selected modules in its own licensed setup
- +Bitpanda GmbH has held a MiCA authorization from Austria's FMA since 9 April 2025, passported across the EEA
- +Live bank clients in the EU: N26 since October 2022, and RLB NÖ-Wien in Austria since January 2024, later extended to 55 further Raiffeisen banks
- +The widest menu beyond crypto: 10,000+ stocks, ETFs and metals next to 650+ crypto assets, per its own product page, behind the bank's front end or Bitpanda's configurable interface
- −Under 'Our license' the client contracts with Bitpanda and its crypto account sits there, so a later change of provider means moving every account; access can also depend on Bitpanda accepting the client, as Fibank's release states
- −Some named partners use it for other things: LBBW's deal covers custody for corporate clients
Bitpanda Enterprise is the Bitpanda unit that supplies crypto, stock, ETF and metals investing to banks and other financial firms for their own apps. Bitpanda folded its B2B business into Bitpanda Enterprise on 4 March 2026, per its release, "formerly known as Bitpanda Technology Solutions". The release names "N26, Société Générale, Deutsche Börse Group, selected Raiffeisen Banks, RAKBANK and Onda Finance, among others" as partners, with end users "across the EU, the UK, the UAE and LATAM". It says crypto-asset services "are provided by Bitpanda GmbH", authorized by Austria's FMA; the ESMA register dates that authorization 9 April 2025. Its Investment-as-a-Service page offers two models: "Our license", to "Deploy Bitpanda Enterprise Infrastructure under our licenses for a fast launch", and "Bring-your-own license", to "Integrate selected modules into your own licensed and operational environment". The same page cites "30M+ B2B2C end users reached", a measure of its partners' reach.
The first model is the disclosed-counterparty shape. N26 launched N26 Crypto in Austria on 20 October 2022 with Bitpanda GmbH, "which manages the execution of trades and custody of coins", and ESMA's register lists N26 Bank SE's own notification for reception and transmission of orders only. Fibank's October 2026 announcement says crypto services will be "provided by Bitpanda GmbH" through the My Fibank app and that "Access to the services will depend on the acceptance of the potential customer by Bitpanda".
In Austria, Raiffeisenlandesbank NÖ-Wien put crypto, metals and other assets from one euro into its Mein ELBA app in January 2024, and the offer was extended to 55 further Raiffeisen banks in Lower Austria and Burgenland in May 2024. RAKBANK in the UAE launched a Bitpanda-powered brokerage in July 2025. On 23 September 2026 Raiffeisen Bank International agreed a framework for its network banks, which will keep their own apps and customer relationships; no first market or date was given.
Crypto Finance
- +Licensed in both markets: Crypto Finance AG is regulated by FINMA, and Crypto Finance (Deutschland) GmbH has held a MiCA authorization from BaFin since 24 January 2025
- +Sold by the module: Zürcher Kantonalbank buys brokerage only, and Commerzbank and KBC buy trading only, while all three banks keep custody themselves
- +Institutional APIs for automated trading, with custody and staking available to banks that want the full set
- −No named German retail bank on it as of October 2026: in Germany the Commerzbank service is for selected corporate clients, and its one named EU retail bank is KBC in Belgium
- −Bought as a trading module, it leaves custody, keys and the MiCA custody liability with the bank
- −Fewer named bank deployments than Sygnum or Bitpanda: three banks directly, plus Thurgauer Kantonalbank through Zürcher Kantonalbank's service
Crypto Finance is a Deutsche Börse Group company that sells crypto trading, custody and staking to banks and other institutions. Its home page describes the setup: "Crypto Finance AG is a financial institution regulated by FINMA, while its subsidiary Crypto Finance (Deutschland) GmbH is regulated by BaFin and operates across Europe thanks to its MiCAR license". ESMA's register dates the German entity's authorization 24 January 2025 and lists custody, exchange, execution and transfer services. Its solutions page offers custody, staking and "Automated trading via institutional grade APIs".
Zürcher Kantonalbank appointed Crypto Finance as partner for crypto asset brokerage services when it opened bitcoin and ether trading in its app and eBanking on 4 September 2024, while ZKB keeps the private keys itself, describing safekeeping as "die kritische Funktion". The same ZKB release names Thurgauer Kantonalbank as the first partner bank on its service, so ZKB is itself a rail for other banks. Commerzbank uses the same split for corporate clients: "Commerzbank will manage the custody of digital assets, while Crypto Finance will ensure their secure trading", according to its September 2024 release. KBC in Belgium buys its trading the same way, with Crypto Finance acting as principal trading counterparty.
Kraken Embed
- +Crypto trading is provided by Payward Europe Solutions Limited, in ESMA's register as a MiCA provider supervised by the Central Bank of Ireland since 25 June 2025
- +A live EU bank deployment: bunq Crypto launched on Kraken Embed in six EU countries in April 2025
- +The bank's app and brand stay in front, and Kraken says it handles execution and market connectivity in the background
- +Trading in 638 cryptocurrencies, per its Embed page, with custody and staking also run by Kraken at bunq
- −One named EU bank client as of October 2026: bunq
- −The client receives the investment service from Kraken, as bunq's own crypto page says, and its crypto account sits there, so a later change of provider means moving every account
- −Staking at bunq is provided by a separate Kraken company and described on bunq's page as unregulated
Kraken Embed is the crypto exchange Kraken's product for running crypto trading inside another firm's app. Its Embed product page offers "Modular APIs" and tells partners: "Stay in control of the user experience and brand. Kraken handles execution and market connectivity in the background." bunq launched bunq Crypto with Kraken Embed in the Netherlands, France, Spain, Ireland, Italy and Belgium in April 2025.
bunq's own crypto page states the shape: "Kraken powers trading and custody; bunq gives secure app access", and "Investment services are provided by Kraken". Crypto trading "is provided by Payward Europe Solutions Limited t/a Kraken, authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland"; staking is provided by Payward Commercial Ltd and described as unregulated. That is the disclosed-counterparty shape: the bank supplies the channel, and the licensed provider is the party serving the client.
Own custody on licensed technology
- +The bank keeps the keys, the client relationship and the economics, and can still buy execution or liquidity from a broker
- +Running at large EU banks: BBVA in Spain and KBC in Belgium
- +Deployment the bank controls: Ripple Custody and Taurus both run on premises or hosted, with key management in hardware security modules (HSM) or multi-party computation (MPC)
- +Under the Basel standard, segregated client custody draws mainly operational-risk capital; the EU's 1,250% risk weight applies to unbacked crypto on the bank's own book
- +Published core-banking links: Taurus-PROTECT with Temenos Core, and Ripple Custody (as Metaco Harmonize) with Avaloq at BBVA Switzerland
- −The bank is the custodian under MiCA Article 75, liable to clients for losses attributable to it up to the market value of the lost crypto-assets
- −Its Article 60 file must include the custody policy, the standard custody agreement and the ICT documentation for key management
- −Key ceremonies, HSM or MPC operations, chain upgrades and 24/7 monitoring become the bank's own operations
- −Custody software brings no liquidity: the bank still needs a broker or venue for every asset it lists
- −CRR3 Article 501d, the EU's transitional crypto capital rule, does not mention client crypto held in Article 75 custody
Own custody means the bank runs the custody software itself and is custodian of record, the party answerable to clients for their crypto. A credit institution can do this: ESMA's Q&A 2088 says it "can provide any crypto-asset services on the basis of an Article 60 notification", custody included. What changes is liability. Under MiCA Article 75, the custodian is liable to clients for losses "as a result of an incident that is attributable to them", capped "at the market value of the crypto-asset that was lost, at the time the loss occurred". Client crypto-assets must also be held separately from the bank's own on the ledger.
BBVA took this route in Spain. In March 2025 it said it will utilize its own cryptographic key custody platform, and on 4 July 2025 it opened bitcoin and ether trading and custody to all retail customers of legal age in Spain. In September 2025 Ripple announced that BBVA would use Ripple Custody, its self-custody technology, for that service. ESMA's register shows BBVA's Article 60 notification for custody, execution and transfer, dated 5 March 2025. In Belgium, KBC opened bitcoin and ether trading on Bolero from the week of 16 February 2026, execution-only, with Taurus-PROTECT as its custody platform and Crypto Finance for trading.
The technology is software the bank operates. Ripple bought Metaco for $250 million in May 2023 and sells it as Ripple Custody, which can run inside the bank's own data center or in the cloud, with HSM or MPC key management; BBVA Switzerland's setup integrates with Avaloq. Taurus offers on-premises or managed hosting with keys in hardware "that the bank owns and operates", and an integration with Temenos Core. Fireblocks sells its platform as software and keeps its own custodian, Fireblocks Trust Company, a New York limited-purpose trust. Utila sells MPC wallet software.
Zodia Custody, Copper and Hex Trust are custodians that hold client assets themselves. An EU bank that hands them client assets delegates custody, and ESMA's April 2026 statement says MiCA "specifically prohibits CASPs from outsourcing or delegating" custody to entities not authorized as crypto-asset service providers, or CASPs. Of the three, only Zodia Custody (Europe) S.A. was in ESMA's register on 16 October 2026.
Banks with crypto in their own channel, live as of October 2026
By number of banks in this table: Sygnum 6, one of them (Luzerner Kantonalbank) a hybrid; Bitpanda Enterprise 3; Crypto Finance 3; Boerse Stuttgart Digital 2, counting flatexDEGIRO's tradias; Kraken Embed 1. BBVA runs its own custody, Openbank offers crypto under its own notification without naming a partner, and the other three banks use AMINA, dwpbank wpNex or Zürcher Kantonalbank's service. Live means clients could trade or hold crypto in the bank's own app or e-banking on that date, and named means stated in a public release, register entry or dated trade report read by 18 October 2026; the German cooperative row dates the first local bank, not the network. Launch dates come from the sources linked in each section above, plus finews.ch for St.Galler Kantonalbank, IT Finanzmagazin for MLP Banking, flatexDEGIRO's September 2025 release and Santander for Openbank. Programs that are announced or rolling out, such as the savings banks' offer from DekaBank, RBI's network banks, Fibank and Nu Global, are listed under Also consider, with US deployments.
Which route should a bank pick?
the bank should stay the client's provider and can file an Article 60 notification for the services it performs, with a custodian behind it that is itself MiCA-authorized or notified: Sygnum, Boerse Stuttgart Digital or Crypto Finance.
clients may contract with the provider for the crypto service, as bunq's clients do with Kraken and N26's with Bitpanda. The bank then notifies the part its app performs, as N26 did for reception and transmission of orders, since an app that takes and passes on orders provides that service whatever the contract calls it (Q&A 2653). Only a pure referral may need no notification, and where a referral falls is for counsel (Q&A 2882).
the bank is a central institution that wants one service its member banks switch on in their own app. In meinKrypto, Boerse Stuttgart Digital holds the coins, DZ BANK notified custody, execution and transfer, and each participating cooperative bank notified its own execution service. DekaBank instead runs trading and custody itself for the savings banks and buys liquidity from Boerse Stuttgart Digital.
keys and client economics stay in house, the bank accepts Article 75 liability and it can run key operations around the clock, as BBVA and KBC do.
the bank keeps custody and buys only execution or liquidity, as Zürcher Kantonalbank, Commerzbank and KBC do with Crypto Finance and DekaBank with Boerse Stuttgart Digital.
one provider should offer both models, 'Our license' and 'Bring-your-own license', with the widest menu beyond crypto: stocks, ETFs and metals.
US rails, programs still rolling out, and other options
- US rails: Coinbase's Crypto-as-a-Service has run bitcoin buying, holding and selling for eligible PNC Private Bank clients since 8 December 2025, under a July 2025 partnership. Through Stablecore it also reaches community banks, with Amarillo National Bank named as live in September 2026. zerohash completed E*Trade's rollout on 16 July 2026, where "All digital asset transactions and custody occur between you and Zero Hash LLC ... through a separate, non-brokerage account in your name at zerohash and outside of Morgan Stanley" (Morgan Stanley release). Bakkt sold Bakkt Trust to ICE in May 2025 and, per its quarterly report for mid-2025, used BitGo and Coinbase Custody as custodians. Some US custodians are national trust banks themselves. The OCC granted Anchorage Digital Bank a national trust bank charter with its conditional approval of a conversion in January 2021. On 12 December 2025 the OCC conditionally approved five crypto firms' trust bank applications, and BitGo completed its conversion into BitGo Bank & Trust the same day, according to its January 2026 prospectus.
- German savings banks and cooperative networks: on DekaBank's product page clients open a crypto account with DekaBank inside the Sparkasse app, and custody "erfolgt zentral bei der DekaBank". Trade press, citing Platow, reported a staged rollout from mid-October 2026, and no individual Sparkasse was in ESMA's register on 16 October 2026.
- Announced, not live: Raiffeisen Bank International agreed a framework with Bitpanda Enterprise for its network banks on 23 September 2026, with no launch date. Fibank in Bulgaria announced its Bitpanda partnership on 12 October 2026. Nu's partnership with Sygnum to launch Nu Global was announced on 10 September 2026, with Sygnum providing a bank guarantee on customer assets. Deutsche Bank's custody for institutional and corporate clients "is not intended for retail clients" and names no vendor (Deutsche Bank release, 16 September 2026); its custody and transfer notification in ESMA's register dates from 12 October 2026. LBBW announced corporate custody with Bitpanda in April 2024, with a pilot planned for the second half of that year; we found no later launch release.
- AMINA: formerly SEBA Bank (the name its press page shows in use until 30 November 2023), it holds a FINMA banking license and, through AMINA (Austria) AG, a MiCA authorization from 29 October 2025 for professional investors. Its one named retail bank client is St.Galler Kantonalbank, live for selected clients since 2 November 2023.
- Other providers in the register: Tangany (MiCA, BaFin, 8 August 2025) holds custody behind flatexDEGIRO. dwpbank's wpNex lets connected banks and savings banks offer crypto inside their existing banking environment, with Tangany named as custody partner, and dwpbank's own custody and transfer notification dates from August 2026. zerohash europe (AFM) and Coinbase Luxembourg (CSSF) hold MiCA licenses, with no named EU bank client for either as of October 2026.
- Protofire's blueprints: the bank crypto-in-app blueprint covers the integration between core banking and the custodian, for which its public page says no off-the-shelf connector to a licensed European custodian exists. The network rollout blueprint fits a central institution whose member banks are separate legal entities, since its public page puts the delivery effort in activating each member bank, one regulatory step at a time.
FAQ
What is crypto-as-a-service for banks?
Does a bank need a MiCA license to offer crypto?
How long does it take a bank to start offering crypto in the EU?
Which crypto-as-a-service provider should a bank choose?
Which Swiss banks offer crypto, and does MiCA apply to them?
Which German banks offer crypto trading in their own app?
Which Austrian banks offer crypto trading in their app?
Can US banks offer crypto custody and trading?
Which banks run their own crypto custody?
Should a bank run its own crypto custody?
Can a bank offer crypto through a partner without notifying under MiCA?
What is the difference between a white-label crypto provider and a disclosed counterparty?
What capital does a bank hold against client crypto?
Does outsourcing crypto custody move the responsibility to the provider?
What does a bank build itself when it rents a crypto rail?
Is the MiCA transitional period over?
What happened to Bitpanda Technology Solutions, tradias and SEBA?
Whichever rail or custody software you choose, we build the bank's side of the service. That means orders from the app, positions and statements in core banking, your own KYC and Travel Rule checks, a daily match with the custodian and a tested exit to a second provider.
Crypto-as-a-service integration for banks →Get a proposal
Tell us what you are building. An engineer reads it, we have a short call, and the written proposal follows within one business day.
Budget
An NDA is available from the first message and can cover anything you share. How it works