OpenBank, the complete digital division of Spain’s Santander Group, has launched digital assets trading for its German retail clients. The move is a major step into the digital assets space for one of Europe’s largest financial institutions, and Spain will continue in the coming weeks.
The new service allows OpenBank customers to buy, sell and hold Bitcoin, and four top Altcoins can be purchased directly on the bank’s investment platform: Ethereum, Litecoin, Polygon and Cardano.
The service is alongside OpenBank’s traditional investment products, including stocks, capital, ETFs and robo-advisory services.
By trading within its own platform, OpenBank eliminates the need for customers to transfer funds to third-party exchanges. The service is also under a new market in European Union crypto assets (MICA) regulations, which provide legal clarity and investor protection across the BLOC.
Coty de Monteverde, head of Crypto at Grupo Santander, said:
“By incorporating major cryptocurrencies into our investment platform, we continue to meet the demands of some of our customers and enhance our wide range of products and services through an agile, simple technology platform supported by one of the world’s leading financial groups.”
OpenBank charges at 1.49% per transaction, with a minimum of 1 euro per trade. The bank does not charge storage fees. This is a detail that may wary of hidden costs for retail investors.
In addition to the first five tokens, OpenBank will add more digital assets in the coming months. Banks also implement “crypto-to-crypto conversion,” allowing customers to move between digital assets without cashing out.
The launch is part of Santander’s broader blockchain and digital asset strategy. OpenBank already serves more than 2 million clients in Spain, Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands, the US and Mexico, making it one of Europe’s largest digital banks.
Santander has previously dabbled in digital assets and blockchain. It has been reported recently that they are considering entering the Stablecoin market, and may issue tokens pinned to the euro or US dollar.
This is the latest move from Santander to experiment with new financial technologies while having a safety net for regulatory compliance.
Santander’s move comes as other European banks prepare their own digital asset services. Germany is seeing a lot of momentum.
DZ Bank, the country’s second largest bank, launched its digital asset pilot in 2024 with 700 cooperative banks. Earlier this year, Deutsche Bank announced that it will use FinTech Bitpanda and Taurus to deploy custody services on digital assets in 2026.
Meanwhile, Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, a network of savings banks serving nearly 50 million Germans, will introduce Bitcoin trading through the Sparkasse app by mid-2026.
Related: Sparkassen, Germany’s largest bank group to commence Bitcoin trading
Elsewhere in Europe, the BBVA, a global financial group headquartered in Spain, already provides digital asset services to its Swiss and Turkish clients and will deploy retail Bitcoin trading in Spain once it has been approved by the regulatory authorities.