Grupo Santander’s digital bank Openbank is expanding in Europe with a new offering for German clients amid rising demand for crypto assets.
The bank said Tuesday that customers in Germany can now buy, sell and hold Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Polygon (POL) and Cardano (ADA) directly on its platform.
According to Santander, the new service integrates crypto alongside Openbank’s existing investment products, eliminating the need for third-party platforms and operating under the European Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) framework.
Crypto trading services are planned to roll out to Spain in the coming weeks, along with additional token offerings and features such as crypto-to-crypto conversions.
Coty de Monteverde, head of crypto at Grupo Santander, said adding crypto to its trading platform in response to customer demand.
Santander, headquartered in Spain, is one of Europe’s largest banks with over 175 million customers in more than 40 countries, according to its website. The bank’s fully digital subsidiary, Openbank, serves more than two million clients across Spain, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, the US and Mexico.
The launch isn’t Santander’s first foray into crypto. In 2018, the bank launched One Pay FX, a Ripple-powered payments app that allowed retail customers in Spain, the UK, Brazil and Poland to make same-day international transfers.
More recently, Santander has weighed entering the stablecoin market, exploring retail crypto services and the potential launch of dollar- and euro-pegged tokens.
Related: From skeptic to supporter: JPMorgan CEO now a ‘believer’ in stablecoins, blockchain
Germany’s biggest banks gear up for crypto
Santander’s move is part of a broader shift in Germany, where the country’s largest banks prepare to integrate crypto services under Europe’s MiCA framework.
One of the earliest movers was DZ Bank, Germany’s second-largest lender, which in September 2024 launched a crypto pilot across 700 cooperative banks using Börse Stuttgart Digital’s infrastructure.
In July 2025, Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest lender, said it would launch a digital asset custody service in 2026 in partnership with Austria’s Bitpanda and Swiss tech firm Taurus, renewing plans first outlined in 2020.
Deutsche Bank’s head of digital assets, Sabih Behzad, said the bank was considering entering the stablecoin market, either by issuing its own token or joining existing projects
More recently, Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe announced plans to roll out retail crypto trading to its nearly 50 million German customers via its Sparkasse app by mid-2026, powered by DekaBank and Börse Stuttgart Digital.
Similar developments are unfolding in the US. After the passage of the GENIUS Act in July 2025, several banks — including JPMorgan, Citigroup and Bank of America — have begun exploring stablecoin issuance and retail-facing crypto services.
Magazine: TradFi is building Ethereum L2s to tokenize trillions in RWAs — Inside story