- The service will be rolled out to customers in Vienna in January
- It is offered in partnership with Bitpanda
The Austrian Raiffeisen Bank, which was founded 97 years ago, will start offering cryptocurrency trading services to retail customers by the end of January next year, CoinDesk reported. The service will be available in partnership with Bitpanda. Initially, it will only be available to customers in Vienna, where the bank has its head office.
Raiffeisen Bank’s Head of Innovation Curt Chadha said:
We are starting in Vienna where about a quarter of Austria’s population lives. The customer can use their mobile device to enter Bitpanda through the Raiffeisen app. The experience will be familiar, so confirming a trade will work exactly like an account-to-account bank transfer with the same sort of security customers are used to.
A sign of crypto going mainstream
Raiffeisen Bank’s decision reflects crypto’s going mainstream despite setbacks, especially in countries with increasing clarity surrounding crypto trading laws. It is a force to reckon with on the traditional finance market, with $215 billion in assets and 17.8 million customers in Europe.
The forerunners: Deutsche Bank and Rosbank
Deutsche Bank pioneered this move. In June, Germany’s largest bank applied for regulatory permission to offer custodial services for crypto and other digital assets.
Earlier that month, Rosbank became the first major bank in Russia to launch cryptocurrencies as an option for cross-border settlements. The service mostly targets corporate clients of the bank, who work with foreign partners, and was seen as a way to evade western sanctions.
Unlike Rosbank, whose offerings are aimed at very wealthy customers, Raiffeisen Bank’s service targets digitally savvy ones who want to venture tentatively into crypto.
The crypto partnership
Cryptocurrency exchange Bitpanda signed a letter of intent with Raiffeisen Bank earlier this year. Bitpanda was founded almost a decade ago in Vienna. The FMA in Austria and BaFin in Germany supervise the exchange, which allows companies to offer regulated trading, custody, and investment services for crypto, stocks, ETFs, commodities, and precious metals.
