Grupo Santander’s digital bank Openbank is broadening its presence in Europe with a new service aimed at German customers in response to the growing interest in crypto assets.
The bank announced on Tuesday that German customers can now buy, sell, and hold Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Polygon (POL), and Cardano (ADA) directly on its platform.
According to Santander, the new service integrates crypto with Openbank’s current investment products, removing the need for external platforms and operating under the European Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) framework.
Services for crypto trading are set to be launched in Spain soon, along with more token offerings and additional features like crypto-to-crypto conversions.
Coty de Monteverde, head of crypto at Grupo Santander, stated that the addition of crypto to its trading platform was in direct response to customer demand.
Santander, based in Spain, is one of Europe’s top banks with over 175 million clients across more than 40 countries, as stated on its website. The bank’s fully digital subsidiary, Openbank, serves over 2 million clients from Spain, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, the US, and Mexico.
This launch marks Santander’s continued exploration in the crypto space. In 2018, the bank introduced One Pay FX, a Ripple-based payment application that enabled retail customers in Spain, the UK, Brazil, and Poland to make same-day international transfers.
More recently, Santander has been considering entering the stablecoin market, looking into retail crypto services, and the potential issuance of dollar- and euro-pegged tokens.
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Germany’s biggest banks gear up for crypto
Santander’s initiative is part of a larger trend in Germany, where the leading banks are gearing up to offer crypto services under the MiCA framework.
One of the pioneers in this area was DZ Bank, Germany’s second-largest lender, which in September 2024 initiated a crypto pilot program across 700 cooperative banks using Börse Stuttgart Digital’s infrastructure.
In July 2025, Deutsche Bank, the largest lender in Germany, announced plans to launch a digital asset custody service by 2026 in collaboration with Austria’s Bitpanda and Swiss tech company Taurus, following up on previously established plans from 2020.
Deutsche Bank’s head of digital assets, Sabih Behzad, indicated that the bank is exploring entering the stablecoin market, potentially through issuing its own token or participating in existing initiatives.
Recently, Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe also shared plans to offer retail crypto trading to its nearly 50 million customers in Germany via its Sparkasse app by mid-2026, facilitated by DekaBank and Börse Stuttgart Digital.
Parallel developments are occurring in the US. Following the enactment of the GENIUS Act in July 2025, several banks—including JPMorgan, Citigroup, and Bank of America—are actively exploring stablecoin issuance and retail-facing crypto services.
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