According to CoinDesk, Austria's Raiffeisen Bank International plans to introduce cryptocurrency trading services for retail customers by the end of January 2024. Initially, the service will be available to customers in Vienna, where the bank is headquartered, in partnership with cryptocurrency exchange Bitpanda. The two companies signed a letter of intent earlier this year.
Curt Chadha, the bank's head of innovation, explained that customers can access BitPanda through the Raiffeisen app on their mobile devices, offering a familiar experience with the same level of security as account-to-account bank transfers. The bank, which has $215 billion in assets and 17.8 billion customers across the European Union and eastern Europe, sees this move as a sign of increasing crypto adoption, especially in areas with clear regulatory guidelines.
Chadha stated that the service targets digitally savvy customers who may only want to make small investments, unlike other banks' offerings aimed at wealthy individuals with millions to invest. Bitpanda, founded in Vienna in 2014, is supervised by the FMA in Austria and BaFin in Germany, allowing companies to provide regulated trading, investment, and custody services for stocks/ETFs, cryptocurrencies, precious metals, and commodities.
