For a long time, banks across Europe kept crypto at a careful distance, viewing it as a liability that could damage their reputation rather than a market worth entering. That mindset shifted the moment the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) came into full effect, and banks are now securing licenses, building custody services, and pooling resources to launch a joint euro stablecoin — activity that would have seemed unlikely just two or three years ago. A regulation many expected to slow banks down has instead given them a reason to move.
Why Now, of All Times
Regulatory certainty is really what’s behind this. Before MiCA, crypto rules in the EU changed depending on which country you were in — messy, inconsistent, and expensive if you wanted to operate across borders. MiCA cleaned that up. One license, granted in any member state, now works in all 27. And for banks that already had MiFID-level compliance teams in place, this wasn’t a huge lift — they just extended what already existed instead of starting over.
There’s a competitive piece to this too, and it’s hard to ignore. ESMA’s crypto-asset service provider register had climbed past 295 authorized firms by late July 2026, and that number keeps growing weekly as unlicensed players get pushed out post-transition. A lot of the new names are banks — BBVA and CaixaBank out of Spain, Commerzbank in Germany, France’s CACEIS Bank, Standard Chartered through its Luxembourg arm. Wait too long to get licensed, and you’re not just missing a deadline — you’re handing institutional clients to whoever moved first.
How Banks Are Getting Into Crypto
Banks have an edge here that standalone crypto firms don’t get. Since credit institutions are already licensed under EU banking law, they can skip the full CASP application and just notify their home regulator instead — a much lighter process than what non-bank exchanges have to go through. Banca Sella took this route, notifying the Bank of Italy and becoming the first Italian bank allowed to offer bitcoin custody, receipt, and transfer services.
Not every bank has gone the easy way, though. Some chose full CASP licensing instead, mostly because they wanted trading alongside custody, and Spain has ended up as the place where this really played out. BBVA, CaixaBank, Cecabank, Openbank, Renta 4 Banco, and Kutxabank all hold CASP authorization from Spanish regulators now — more licensed banking institutions in crypto than anywhere else in Europe. BBVA got there first, launching Bitcoin and Ethereum trading and custody for retail customers back in 2025, ahead of pretty much everyone else on the continent.
Banks outside the EU are using the same entry point. Standard Chartered picked up a MiCA license and an e-money institution authorization through its Luxembourg entity, which now lets it offer crypto and digital asset custody across the bloc. It joined a long list of banks — two German cooperative lenders, Portugal’s Bison Bank, Croatia’s state-owned HPB, and others — that all landed on the ESMA register in the weeks right after the July 2026 transition deadline hit.
Why Custody Is Where Banks Are Moving First
Out of everything banks are building in crypto, custody is the service that’s gained traction the fastest. Cecabank in Spain launched a digital asset custody platform through a partnership with Bit2Me, brought on Renta 4 Banco as its first client, and is now positioned to handle assets across a Spanish banking sector worth hundreds of billions of euros. ABN AMRO in Germany went a similar way, building crypto custody on top of its existing KWG banking license after acquiring Kapilendo Custodian AG to get the infrastructure in place.
The reasoning isn’t complicated. Instead of going head-to-head with retail exchanges, banks are chasing institutional and corporate clients — the kind who won’t touch digital assets at scale without proper custody, settlement, and transfer infrastructure behind them. What banks can offer that offshore platforms can’t is prudential oversight and deposit-grade governance, and that’s precisely what treasury desks and asset managers have been holding out for.
How Qivalis Became Europe’s Biggest Bank-Led Stablecoin Bet
Qivalis is the boldest joint move so far — an Amsterdam-based venture that started with nine founding banks back in September 2025 and has since grown into a group of 37. ING, BNP Paribas, UniCredit, Danske Bank, DekaBank, SEB, CaixaBank, KBC, Raiffeisen Bank International, and Banca Sella got the whole thing going. BBVA joined a few months later, in February 2026, and then AIB and Bank of Ireland came aboard that May.
The venture is going for an e-money institution license from De Nederlandsche Bank. What they’re planning to issue is a euro-denominated e-money token — every euro in circulation matched by a euro sitting in bank deposits or other liquid reserves, which is what MiCA demands anyway. They’re aiming for a commercial launch sometime in the second half of 2026, and the money will mostly come from yield earned on those reserves, which then gets split back among the member banks.
There’s a bigger motive here than just launching another payment token. Dollar-pegged stablecoins still dominate globally, and European banks want something regulated and euro-based that keeps settlement and treasury activity inside the EU rather than routed through dollar-denominated tokens. One Qivalis executive described the expanding membership as «a giant leap toward an open and compliant on-chain ecosystem for the euro.» Société Générale’s Forge arm actually got there first, launching its own euro stablecoin before the Qivalis group had even come together.
Here’s a quick snapshot of where several major players stand right now.
| Bank | Market | MiCA activity | Status |
| BBVA | Spain | CASP license; BTC/ETH trading and custody; Qivalis member | Live since 2025 |
| Banca Sella | Italy | Notification route; custody, receipt, transfer; Qivalis founder | Authorized 2026 |
| CaixaBank | Spain | CASP license for custody and trading; Qivalis member | Authorized 2026 |
| Cecabank | Spain | Custody platform with Bit2Me for institutional clients | Live June 2026 |
| Standard Chartered | Luxembourg | MiCA and EMI licenses for EU-wide custody | Granted 2026 |
| AIB / Bank of Ireland | Ireland | Qivalis stablecoin consortium members | Joined May 2026 |
| ABN AMRO | Germany | Crypto custody via KWG license and Kapilendo acquisition | Live |
Not Everything Is Moving Smoothly
It hasn’t all been easy sailing. Back in May 2026, the European Central Bank shot down a proposal to loosen liquidity and reserve requirements for euro stablecoin issuers — a pretty clear message that supervisors want banks in crypto, but not at the cost of prudential discipline. Euro-pegged stablecoins are still a small slice of the global market, so there wasn’t much pressure on regulators to bend the rules just to speed things along.
Licensing has slowed down too. The ESMA register jumped from about 243 to 280 authorized firms in the first week of July, but the update after that added just 14 more names. That’s not necessarily a red flag — it probably just means the banks most eager to get licensed already did, and things are settling into a steadier rhythm now, with smaller regional and cooperative banks trickling in.
Supervisors, for their part, had already done most of the heavy lifting beforehand. The EBA and ESMA wrapped up the bulk of MiCA’s detailed implementing rules well ahead of the July 2026 deadline, including suitability guidance for crypto advice that lines up closely with existing MiFID II standards. That’s really why the notification route caught on with so many banks — they weren’t building compliance infrastructure from zero, just stretching what they already had to cover crypto too.
Where This Leaves the Market
Dozens of licensed, well-capitalized banks piling into custody, trading, and stablecoin issuance is changing who actually competes for crypto business in Europe. It’s a real vote of confidence in the asset class from institutions that spent years staying away from it, but it also raises the bar for smaller crypto-native firms now going up against banks with deeper pockets and clients who already trust them. If you’re advising crypto businesses in the region, the pattern is worth keeping an eye on: custody comes first, trading follows, and stablecoin issuance is increasingly happening through joint ventures like Qivalis rather than banks going it alone. That’s probably where the next round of regulatory and commercial action ends up concentrating.
Sources:
1. Qivalis B.V. – «Qivalis More Than Triples in Size as 25 New Banks Join the Consortium» (official press release) – https://qivalis.eu/press/news/qivalis-more-than-triples-in-size-as-25-new-banks-join-the-consortium-accelerating-institutional-scale-for-a-euro-stablecoin/
2. CaixaBank – «Qivalis, joint venture of a European banking consortium, to launch euro stablecoin in 2026» (official company statement) – https://www.caixabank.com/en/headlines/news/qivalis-joint-venture-of-a-european-banking-consortium-to-launch-euro-stablecoin-in-the-second-half-of-2026
3. Bank of Ireland – «Bank of Ireland joins European banking initiative to develop euro-denominated stablecoin» (official press release) – https://www.bankofireland.com/about-bank-of-ireland/press-releases/2026/bank-of-ireland-joins-european-banking-initiative-to-develop-euro-denominated-stablecoin/
4. PR Newswire / Qivalis – «Major European Bank Consortium Qivalis Plans to Leverage Fireblocks to Power MiCAR-Compliant Stablecoin» (official announcement) – https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/major-european-bank-consortium-qivalis-plans-to-leverage-fireblocks-to-power-micar-compliant-euro-stablecoin
5. PR Newswire / Cecabank – «Cecabank Launches Cryptocurrency Asset Custody Service with Its First Client in Collaboration with Bit2Me» (official press release) – https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cecabank-launches-cryptocurrency-asset-custody-service-with-its-first-client-in-collaboration-with-bit2me
6. ABN AMRO – «Regulated Crypto Custody» (official product page) – https://www.abnamro.de/en/asset-servicing/digital-assets/regulated-crypto-custody.html
7. European Central Bank – Christine Lagarde speech, «Stablecoins and the future of money: separating functions from forms» – https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2026/html/ecb.sp260508~dd909fbed1.en.html
8. European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) – «Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA)» official page – https://www.esma.europa.eu/esmas-activities/digital-finance-and-innovation/markets-crypto-assets-regulation-mica
