Germany’s LBBW bank plans to offer crypto custody services in partnership with Bitpanda

Germany's Landesbank Baden-Württemberg bank has announced plans to provide its institutional and corporate clients with "investment-as-a-service" infrastructure for storing and procuring cryptocurrencies.

The largest federal bank in Germany has partnered with the Austrian-based Bitpanda exchange to implement the new crypto custody services. It plans to start with a custody pilot during the second half of 2024, which will initially include the storage and trading of bitcoin and ether .

Partnership between LBBW and Bitpanda

The partnership with Bitpanda will provide LBBW with the technical and regulatory infrastructure to offer its customers the new digital asset trading and custody solution, LBBW Board of Directors member Stefanie Münz said. "By offering crypto-asset custody, we are positioning ourselves with a clear added value for our corporate clients, while ensuring the highest security standards," Münz added.

LBBW said it is in the early stages of creating the technical and regulatory basis to best support the individual crypto strategies of its corporate customers.

"The demand from our corporate customers for digital assets is increasing, and we are convinced that crypto assets will establish themselves as a building block for further business models," LBBW Corporate Bank COO Dr Jürgen Harengel said in a press statement.

Bitpanda gets German crypto trading and custody license

In November, Bitpanda was granted a crypto trading and custody license in Germany from the country’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin).

The Vienna-headquartered exchange is now be able to legally offer German citizens crypto custody and proprietary trading for crypto assets, maintain an order book and directly market crypto services.

Bitpanda has already secured licenses across Europe — including Austria, France, Italy, Spain, the U.K., the Czech Republic and Sweden.