Thanks to the contributions of institutional fund managers, the traditional banking system has also become increasingly open to the cryptocurrency world in recent years. This has reputational reasons on the one hand and regulatory reasons on the other: with the MiCA guidelines, the European Union wants to create a framework so that trading in digital assets is uniform and safe for everyone.
France’s second-largest banking group BPCE will launch the purchase of bitcoin, ethereum, solana and USDC for its customers through its application on Monday. This move marks the integration of mainstream finance with the crypto market, while regulations protect investors.
Stable service environment for BPCE
The Regulation of Markets in Crypto-Assets introduced fully effective, uniform European Union regulation for digital assets from December 2024, focusing on investor protection, the publication of the White Paper, the prudential capital requirement, organizational structure, risk management and the prohibition of market abuse. While the regulations primarily apply to stablecoins and service providers, the transparency and recovery plan also covers anti-money laundering.
This framework creates a stable environment in which digital assets and cryptocurrencies can be securely accessed by ordinary, traditional actors, which is also used by France’s second largest banking group, Banque Popculair Île-de-France and Caisse d’Épargne Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.
Introduced by BPCE services they become available on a digital asset account, which the monthly amount is only 2.99 eurosA and the trading commission is a minimum of 1 euro, but a maximum of 1.5%. Asset management is handled by subsidiary Hexarq, which last year obtained the AMF PSAN license, which applies to the French digital asset service.
“This phased rollout allows us to evaluate user acceptance and system effectiveness before further expansion occurs”
– Yahoo Finance quotes BPCE spokesperson
By the way, the French banking giant has two million customers who, like BBVA, want to open up to trading in digital assets by 2026.
Similar practices in Europe
In addition to the already mentioned Spanish BBVA, Santander Oberbank offers BTC, ETH, LTC, POL and ADA trading in Germany, adapted to the MiCA rules. In Belgium, KBC Bank’s Bolero platform launched BTC and ETH trading, and Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe plans to launch its services for its customers in 2026. Among the traditional banks, Vienna’s Raiffaisen also deserves attention, which in collaboration with Bitpanda wants to offer digital asset trading to its millions of customers.
Although the decision itself should be appreciated by all European actors, it is worth noting that the quality and price of the services are not close to the level of crypto exchanges: the monthly fee of 1.5% is much higher than, for example, Bitget or Binance pricing, where in addition to purchasing assets it is also possible to deposit assets in exchange for extra interest, withdraw them and use them within the ecosystem, and transfer them to a cold wallet and store them there.
Despite the criticism, the example of BPCE can be a catalyst for the whole of Europe. In Hungary, of the banking giants examined, only Erste and K&H, a subsidiary of the KBC Group, offer cryptocurrency trading in the form of ETPs/ETCs, while OTP Bank completely distances itself from the introduction of such services.
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