Openbank, Grupo Santander’s fully digital bank, is expanding its product suite by enabling customers in Germany to trade leading cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ether, and Cardano, alongside their existing investments.
The bank states that this move will allow customers to buy, sell, or hold digital assets directly within their Openbank accounts, eliminating the need to transfer funds to external platforms. Openbank emphasises that clients will benefit from the security and investor protection provided by Grupo Santander and the guarantees under the European Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).
The bank has announced plans to broaden its cryptocurrency portfolio in the coming months, with additional coins and new features such as crypto-to-crypto conversion on the roadmap. The service is also set to launch for Openbank customers in Spain in the near future, reflecting the bank’s intention to roll out digital asset trading across its European footprint.
Coty de Monteverde, head of crypto at Grupo Santander, commented: “By incorporating the main cryptocurrencies into our investment platform, we are responding to the demand of some of our customers and continue to strengthen a broad range of products and services through an agile, simple technology platform backed by one of the world’s leading financial groups.”
Openbank’s current investment offering includes an automated investment service, Robo Advisor, as well as access to over 3,000 stocks, 3,000 investment funds from more than 123 asset managers, and upwards of 2,000 exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The bank has also recently launched an AI-powered broker platform, which provides target prices and analytics for more than 1,000 European and US stocks.
This expansion into cryptocurrency trading comes as European banks increasingly seek to integrate digital assets into mainstream financial services, following the implementation of MiCA, which sets out a regulatory framework for crypto-assets across the European Union. The move positions Openbank as one of the first major digital banks in Germany to offer direct crypto trading with full regulatory backing.
