European banks doubled their presence on the EU's MiCA crypto provider register between June and September 2026, rising from approximately 40 to 80 institutions. Banks now account for 23% of all registered crypto asset service providers, up from 17% three months prior. The shift follows the July ...
"We are seeing growing demand for crypto assets in our markets, which we are addressing with a strong, reputable partner." — Michael Höllerer, CEO, Raiffeisen Bank International
European banks doubled their presence on the EU's MiCA crypto provider register between June and September 2026, rising from approximately 40 to 80 institutions. Banks now account for 23% of all registered crypto asset service providers, up from 17% three months prior. The shift follows the July 1, 2026, expiration of the MiCA transitional period, which forced more than 83% of the EU's 1,200-plus pre-MiCA crypto operators out of the market — and opened the door for licensed credit institutions to fill the gap.
Three parallel developments in September 2026 underscore the trend. Raiffeisen Bank International signed a group-wide agreement with Bitpanda Enterprise to supply crypto trading infrastructure across 11 Central and Eastern European markets, potentially reaching 18.8 million banking customers. Deutsche Bank disclosed plans to launch Bitcoin, Ether, and stablecoin custody for institutional clients by year-end. And the Qivalis consortium — twelve banks including BBVA, BNP Paribas, ING, and UniCredit — continued preparations for a bank-issued, MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin in H2 2026.
The combined effect is a structural reordering of Europe's crypto market. Banks are not building from scratch. They are plugging into white-label infrastructure providers like Bitpanda Enterprise and Fireblocks, leveraging their existing banking licenses, and using MiCA's streamlined notification procedure to bypass the full CASP authorization process that tripped up crypto-native firms.
The Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation entered full effect across the EU on June 30, 2025, with a transitional period that expired on July 1, 2026. Before MiCA, more than 1,200 entities held national Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) registrations across EU member states. As of the July deadline, approximately 210 had converted to full Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP) authorization — a conversion rate of roughly 17%.
The remaining 83% either failed to complete the application process, could not meet MiCA's capital, governance, and compliance requirements, or chose to exit the EU market. According to ESMA's April 17, 2026 statement, any entity providing crypto-asset services without MiCA authorization after July 1 must immediately cease operations.
This regulatory contraction created a vacuum. Banks, however, face a different path. Under MiCA Article 60, credit institutions that already hold a banking license are not required to obtain separate CASP authorization. They need only notify their national competent authority at least 40 business days before commencing crypto services. The procedural advantage is substantial: while crypto-native firms face a full authorization process that has taken 6 to 18 months in practice, banks can begin offering services after a notification window that is roughly one-fifth of that timeline.
Germany illustrates the pattern. As of September 16, 2026, the country leads the MiCA register with 53 authorized entities, but dozens of additional banks — including Volksbank, Raiffeisenbank, and VR Bank cooperative institutions — have appeared on the register through the notification pathway. Ten EU jurisdictions had yet to issue a single CASP authorization as of the same date.
According to ESMA registration data compiled by Cointelegraph, the number of banks on the EU's MiCA crypto provider register nearly doubled between June 26 and September 16, 2026 — from roughly 40 to approximately 80. Total registered providers reached 349. The bank share rose from one-sixth to nearly one-quarter of the total list. Non-bank providers fell from 84% to 77% of the register.
The growth is concentrated. Germany accounts for the largest share, driven by its network of cooperative banking groups. France and Luxembourg follow, each benefiting from early MiCA implementation and existing digital-asset licensing frameworks. The Netherlands has also seen activity, partly due to the Qivalis consortium's decision to seek authorization through De Nederlandsche Bank.
The doubling occurred in the quarter immediately following the MiCA transition deadline, suggesting that banks accelerated their entry once the competitive field narrowed. With fewer crypto-native competitors authorized to operate, the addressable customer base for bank-offered crypto services expanded.
On September 23, 2026, Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) announced a group-wide partnership with Vienna-based Bitpanda Enterprise. The deal enables RBI's subsidiary banks across 11 Central and Eastern European markets to offer digital asset trading through Bitpanda's white-label infrastructure. According to Bloomberg, the agreement covers a potential customer base of 18.8 million, as reported by RBI at end of June 2026.
The structure separates infrastructure from distribution. Bitpanda Enterprise supplies the trading engine, custody, and regulatory-compliant technology stack. Each RBI subsidiary bank determines its own product scope, launch timeline, and local regulatory compliance. The first markets are expected to be Albania, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, with rollout beginning in H1 2027.
The partnership builds on prior integration. Raiffeisenlandesbank Niederösterreich-Wien, one of the regional Raiffeisen banks that collectively own approximately 61% of RBI, added Bitpanda trading to its Mein ELBA banking app in January 2024. The new agreement extends this model group-wide, moving from a one-bank-at-a-time approach to a centralized framework.
For RBI CEO Michael Höllerer, who took the role recently, the deal represents one of his first strategic initiatives. The bank plans to unveil a broader strategy update by end of September 2026.
On September 16, 2026, CoinDesk reported that Deutsche Bank is preparing to launch a digital asset custody service for European institutional and corporate clients by year-end 2026, pending regulatory clearance under MiCA.
The service will manage wallets and private keys on behalf of clients. Supported assets at launch include Bitcoin, Ether, USDC, and EURC. Target clients include asset managers, hedge funds, custodians, brokers, and sovereign institutions, served through Deutsche Bank's Corporate Bank and Investment Bank divisions.
Deutsche Bank's $1.7 trillion balance sheet underpins the offering. The bank has indicated plans to expand custody into tokenized financial instruments, positioning the crypto service as a foundation for broader digital asset operations rather than a standalone product.
The entry of a globally systemically important bank (G-SIB) into crypto custody represents a qualitative shift. Until 2026, European institutional crypto custody was dominated by specialized firms such as Fireblocks, Copper, and Zodia Markets (a Standard Chartered subsidiary). Deutsche Bank's entry brings prime brokerage-scale balance sheet support and existing institutional client relationships that pure-play custody providers cannot match.
Qivalis, a Dutch-registered joint venture, is building a MiCA-compliant euro-pegged stablecoin backed by a consortium of twelve European banks: Banca Sella, BBVA, BNP Paribas, CaixaBank, Danske Bank, DekaBank, DZ BANK, ING, KBC, Raiffeisen Bank International, SEB, and UniCredit.
The commercial launch is targeted for H2 2026. Authorization is being sought through De Nederlandsche Bank. The stablecoin will be backed 1:1 by a mix of bank deposits and high-quality short-term euro-area sovereign bonds. Fireblocks is providing the blockchain infrastructure.
According to CoinDesk reporting from March 2026, Qivalis was in discussions with major crypto exchanges to ensure launch-day liquidity for the token. The consortium's stated goal is to create a regulated European alternative to dollar-denominated stablecoins, which currently dominate the market.
The scale of dollar dominance in stablecoins provides context for the Qivalis effort. As of January 2026, the global stablecoin market stood at approximately $305 billion. Euro-pegged stablecoins accounted for roughly $650 million — less than 0.25% of the total. By Q1 2026, that figure had risen to approximately $887 million, according to industry data.
The current euro stablecoin landscape is fragmented:
The ECB and all 27 EU national central banks have proposed scrapping MiCA's requirement that stablecoin issuers hold 60% of reserves in EU bank deposits, favoring instead a liquidity-based reserve framework. This regulatory adjustment, if adopted, could reduce the capital cost of stablecoin issuance and potentially accelerate bank-issued euro stablecoin growth.
The disparity between dollar and euro stablecoins reflects both network effects and structural factors. USDT and USDC benefit from deep liquidity, universal exchange listings, and dominance in DeFi settlement. Euro stablecoins face smaller addressable markets, fewer exchange trading pairs, and lower DeFi integration. Whether a twelve-bank consortium can overcome these structural headwinds remains unproven.
The bank expansion follows a consistent pattern: banks are not building proprietary crypto technology. They are contracting infrastructure to specialized providers.
Bitpanda Enterprise — rebranded from Bitpanda Technology Solutions — reported adjusted revenue of €371 million for 2025, a 16% year-over-year increase. The company supplies white-label trading, custody, liquidity, payments, and tokenization services to banks including N26 (8 million users), BW-Bank, and now RBI. Bitpanda CEO Eric Demuth noted that "as regulation provides clarity, traditional banks and fintechs are entering the crypto space, creating demand for a white-label infrastructure solution."
Fireblocks powers the Qivalis consortium's stablecoin infrastructure and has established itself as a default custody and settlement layer for institutional crypto operations in Europe. The company's technology underpins multiple bank-backed digital asset initiatives across the continent.
The economic value distribution in this arrangement is worth noting. Banks capture the customer relationship, brand trust, and regulatory license value. Infrastructure providers capture recurring technology fees and transaction-based revenue. The crypto-native firms that survived MiCA authorization — Kraken, Coinbase, Bitstamp, OKX, and Crypto.com among them — compete on both fronts simultaneously, but face margin pressure as banks offer comparable products through their existing distribution networks.
The shift in market composition is quantifiable. Revolut, which operates on banking and e-money infrastructure, accounts for 5.7% of total monthly unique crypto visitors in Europe, according to Kaiko's 2026 European crypto market report — ahead of both Coinbase and eToro. Of Revolut's users, 77.7% come from MiCA-licensed markets, suggesting that regulatory compliance functions as a competitive moat.
For crypto-native firms, the July 1 deadline created a bifurcated market. The approximately 210 firms that obtained CASP authorization continue to operate, but face competition from 80-plus banks entering through the notification pathway. The firms that failed to convert — over 1,000 entities — have effectively exited the EU market, reducing competition but also demonstrating the compliance burden that favors well-capitalized incumbents.
The longer-term question is whether bank-offered crypto services will commoditize trading margins. Banks can cross-subsidize crypto offerings with existing product revenue. Crypto-native firms cannot. If the bank share of MiCA registrations continues to grow at the current pace — doubling every quarter — banks could represent one-third of all EU crypto providers by early 2027.
The European banking sector's entry into crypto services is not a bet on digital assets. It is a regulatory arbitrage play enabled by MiCA's two-tier authorization structure. Banks enter through a notification procedure; crypto-native firms face a full authorization process that has eliminated four out of five pre-MiCA operators.
The resulting market structure favors incumbents with existing banking licenses, established customer bases, and the capital reserves to absorb compliance costs. Infrastructure providers like Bitpanda Enterprise and Fireblocks capture technology revenue without bearing regulatory risk. The remaining authorized crypto-native firms compete on product depth and trading features, but face margin compression as bank distribution scales.
The euro stablecoin gap — less than 0.3% of global stablecoin supply — represents both the opportunity and the constraint. A twelve-bank consortium signals institutional intent, but dollar-denominated stablecoins' network effects have proven durable across multiple market cycles. Whether Qivalis can generate sufficient liquidity and exchange integration to challenge USDT and USDC's dominance is an open question with no precedent to guide expectations.
What is measurable: 80 banks registered, 18.8 million new potential crypto users through a single partnership, and a G-SIB preparing institutional custody. The structural shift in European crypto market composition is underway. Its economic outcomes remain to be observed.