If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them: German Banking Giant Commerzbank Applies For Crypto License

One of Germany's top banking institutions, Commerzbank CRZBF, confirmed it did indeed apply for a local cryptocurrency license earlier in 2022 so it could legally offer services for people interested in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin BTC/USD.

What Happened: A Commerzbank spokesperson recently confirmed to local media outlet Börsen-Zeitung that it applied for a crypto license in the first quarter of 2022. If the bank were to obtain such a license, it could offer cryptocurrency exchange and custody services as well as protection of crypto holdings.

See Also: How To Get Free Crypto

Commerzbank counts more than 18 million retail customers and over 70,000 institutional clients — the latter would be the target of the bank's future crypto offering. On Jan. 1, 2020, the German regulator Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) started requiring cryptocurrency service providers to register and obtain authorization to operate.

So far only four institutions were granted the permit to operate in Germany by BaFin and the first one was Coinbase Germany — a branch of Coinbase Global Inc. COIN. The most recently approved institution is Berlin-based financial technology firm Upvest.

Photo: analogicus from Pixabay