Germany’s Largest Bank to Offer Crypto Custody Arena with Bitpanda

Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) – Germany’s largest federal bank – is poised to offer digital asset custody services and has teamed up with the crypto exchange Bitpanda.

The main goal is to meet the increasing demand for digital asset management among institutional and corporate clients and it is scheduled for release in the latter half of 2024.

According to the official announcement, LBBW will leverage Bitpanda Technology Solution’s advanced “Investment-as-a-Service” (IaaS) infrastructure to provide cryptocurrency custody and procurement services to its corporate clients.

Bitpanda said that the pilot for custody and procurement of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital assets will be further developed in the next couple of months.

Commenting on the development, Dr. Jürgen Harengel, COO of Corporate Bank at LBBW, said,

“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.”

German banks and asset managers have gradually gotten more involved in crypto assets by providing custody services and creating their own products for this asset class, potentially in anticipation of upcoming EU regulations.

Deutsche Bank, for one, is developing its own digital asset custody service, and its DWS unit is involved in a group creating a stablecoin denominated in euros.

Last February, DZ Bank, which happens to be the second-largest German bank by assets, announced plans to offer digital asset custody services in collaboration with Swiss firm Metaco and orchestration platform Harmonize.