Openbank, the fully digital arm of Spain’s Santander Group, has launched digital assets trading for retail clients in Germany. The move is a big step for one of Europe’s largest financial institutions into the digital asset space, with Spain to follow in the coming weeks.

The new service allows Openbank customers to buy, sell, and hold bitcoin, as well as four top altcoins — Ethereum, Litecoin, Polygon, and Cardano — directly on the bank’s investment platform.

The service sits alongside Openbank’s traditional investment products such as stocks, funds, ETFs, and robo-advisory services.

By trading within its own platform, Openbank eliminates the need for customers to transfer funds to third-party exchanges. The service is also under the European Union’s new Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, which provides legal clarity and investor protection across the bloc.

Coty de Monteverde, Head of Crypto at Grupo Santander, said:

“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 has set fees at 1.49% per trade, with a minimum of €1 per trade. The bank will not charge custody fees, a detail that could appeal to retail investors wary of hidden costs.

In addition to the initial five tokens, Openbank will add more digital assets in the coming months. The bank will also introduce “crypto-to-crypto conversions,” so customers can move between digital assets without cashing out.

The launch is part of Santander’s broader blockchain and digital assets strategy. Openbank already serves more than two million clients across Spain, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, the U.S., and Mexico, making it one of Europe’s largest digital banks.

Santander has dabbled in digital assets and blockchain before. Recently, it has been reported to be considering entering the stablecoin market, potentially issuing tokens pegged to the euro or U.S. dollar.

This is the latest move from Santander to experiment with new financial technologies while having the safety net of regulatory compliance.

Santander’s move comes as other major European banks are preparing their own digital asset services. Germany is seeing a lot of momentum.

DZ Bank, the country’s second-largest bank, launched a digital asset pilot with 700 cooperative banks in 2024. Deutsche Bank announced earlier this year that it would roll out a custody service for digital assets in 2026 with fintechs Bitpanda and Taurus.

Meanwhile, Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, a network of savings banks serving almost 50 million Germans, will introduce bitcoin trading through its Sparkasse app by mid-2026.

Related: Germany’s Largest Banking Group Sparkassen to Launch Bitcoin Trading

Elsewhere in Europe, BBVA, the global financial group headquartered in Spain, already offers digital asset services to clients in Switzerland and Turkey, and will roll out retail bitcoin trading in Spain once it gets regulatory approval.

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Filed under: Altcoins - @ September 18, 2025 11:37 am