40 German banks want to offer Bitcoin solutions alongside Traditional Investment Products

More than 40 financial institutions in Germany rush to obtain a license to offer Crypto custody solutions

Financial regulators in Germany passed a law recently called The Fifth European Money Laundering directive which supposedly allows financial institutions to offer Cryptocurrency services. The law which went into effect at the beginning of the year has prompted over 40 banks and institutions to approach the country’s financial regulator BaFin.

According to a report from the local publication Handelsblatt:

“The new Money Laundering Act no longer only allows banks to offer and keep traditional securities such as stocks and bonds. Since the beginning of the year, the financial institutions have also been able to offer their customers online banking cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum or Ripple at the push of a button.”

Although the names were not disclosed by Handelsblatt, it is fairly clear that the demand for such custody products by large institutions is not insignificant. The Crypto market is slowly but surely recovering from the crash in 2018 and is much more sophisticated now, currently, the market cap of all Cryptocurrencies is close to $285 Billion.

According to the report, One of the first firms in Germany to apply for a license was Solaris, the Fintech company launched a subsidiary named Solaris Digital Assets in December last year to provide fully compliant custody solutions to Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

Michael Offermann, head of crypto banking at the institute told Handelsblatt:

“We have been dealing intensively with the topic of crypto custody for a year and a half, The new regulation in the new Money Laundering Act is a good time to start practically. After all, we are not a research institute, but a commercial bank. ”

Places like Berlin in Germany have a very strong community of  Crypto users and developers, with this new regulation the country is clearly signaling an interest to become a hub for Financial innovation including Crypto assets.

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