LBBW, Germany’s largest federal bank, could not keep silent about the growing crypto demand in the world. The bank will start providing custody services to its institutional clients by partnering with Bitpanda, an Austrian-based exchange. Services will be provided from the second half of this year.

Stefanie Münz, a member of the bank’s board of directors, said in a press release: “By offering crypto-asset custody, we are positioning ourselves with a clear added value for our corporate clients – while ensuring the highest security standards,”

“Corporate customers for digital assets is increasing”

Jürgen Harengel, one of the bank managers, stated that the demands for this service on an institutional scale are increasing day by day and made the following statements:

“The demand from our corporate customers for digital assets is increasing. We are convinced that crypto assets will establish themselves as a building block for further business models. With the cooperation, we are creating the technical and regulatory basis at an early stage to best support the individual crypto strategies of our corporate customers.”

Commerzbank, one of Germany’s major banks, announced that it started providing the same service in November 2023 and became the first in this sense.

French giant Credit Agricole also has a crypto subsidiary.