In March we reported that DZ Bank had partnered with Börse Stuttgart to provide retail cryptocurrency trading and custody services to the clients of German co-operative banks. DZ Bank provides services to a network of 737 community banks, so called Volks and Raiffeisenbanke. Now it is starting to pilot the solution with the first bank, Westerwald Bank, opening crypto wallets and starting to transact. Many other co-operative banks are expected to go live in 2025, although the timing is up to each institution.
While these won’t be the first group of banks offering crypto services, it is still relatively novel for banks to provide crypto trading to retail clients. In Switzerland, the post office’s PostFinance launched crypto services in February. Other major German banks such as Commerzbank and LBBW are planning or started offering services, but only to corporate clients.
Börse Stuttgart will provide cryptocurrency trading and digital asset custody. It already has significant experience with retail crypto in Germany through the Börse Stuttgart Digital Exchange (BSDEX). That was launched in 2019 as a joint venture with Axel Springer and finanzen.net.
DZ Bank has a separate relationship with Ripple Custody (formerly Metaco) which forms part of its institutional custody solution. Initially the relationship targeted custody for crypto securities, the German term for digital securities issued on a blockchain. However, it expanded to cryptocurrency custody, but also for institutional clients of DZ Bank.
