Germany’s Sparkassen started selling bitcoin inside their banking app on Monday 19 October, four years after their umbrella association told members to keep out of crypto trading. Sparkassen bitcoin trading runs through DekaBank, the group’s own securities house: customers of the first participating savings banks can buy and sell five coins (bitcoin, ether, XRP, Solana and Polygon) in the “Sparkasse” app for a flat 0.99 euro per order, according to DekaBank’s product page and price list and the dpa news agency as reported by t3n.
There is a catch that matters to anyone who already holds crypto. The coins stay with DekaBank in a shared wallet, and for now they can only be sent on to certain approved crypto service providers, never straight to a customer’s own hardware wallet. On top of the 0.99 euro fee, each price quote carries a DekaBank spread that no published document puts a number on.
The reach is large on paper. The German Savings Banks Association (DSGV) has for years put the group’s customer base at about 50 million people, a round figure its 2025 financial report still uses for all Sparkassen customers rather than a count of anyone who can trade crypto today. The offer reaches a customer only once his or her own Sparkasse switches it on, and that is happening one bank at a time.
Sparkassen bitcoin trading opens bank by bank, with no common start date
Each of the roughly 350 Sparkassen decides for itself when to join. “Wann eine Sparkasse startet, entscheidet sie selbst,” DSGV executive board member Joachim Schmalzl told dpa, as quoted by BTC-Echo: when a Sparkasse starts is its own decision. More than 230 of them, about two-thirds of the group, have said they are interested, according to BTC-Echo and The Cryptonomist.
The association expects 30 to 40 more savings banks to connect every month and wants a large share of the interested ones live in the first half of 2027, Schmalzl said. Maximilian Wirth, who ran the project for the DSGV, told Blocktrainer: “Ab heute können die ersten Kunden Kryptowährungen direkt in der App Sparkasse über die DekaBank kaufen.” From today, in other words, the first customers can buy crypto in the app through DekaBank.
No German outlet we read named the savings banks that went live on day one, and neither DekaBank’s nor the DSGV’s press page carried a release on the launch when we checked on the evening of 19 October. One English-language report put a figure on the first wave; we could not confirm it, so we do not repeat it here.
Access is simple by bank standards. A customer must be an adult with a current account at a participating Sparkasse, then opens a crypto account with DekaBank inside the app, according to DekaBank’s product page; a securities account is not needed, BTC-Echo and dasinvestment.com reported. The service is execution-only: no advice and no active advertising, aimed at people who decide for themselves. Trading is not tied to exchange hours and can run almost around the clock, the product page says, except during outages or maintenance.
The DSGV has not changed its view of the asset class. It still calls crypto “hochspekulative Anlagen” (highly speculative investments) and warns of “starke Kursschwankungen und das Risiko eines Totalverlusts”, sharp price swings and the risk of losing everything, t3n reported from the dpa story. For building wealth over the long run it still points customers to securities, savings plans and advice.
0.99 euro per order, plus a spread DekaBank does not publish
DekaBank’s price information for crypto-assets, dated September 2026, sets a flat fee of 0.99 euro for every buy and every sell order. Registration, custody, deliveries to an external wallet address, statements and customer support are free. There is no minimum order size. The maximum is 250,000 euros per transaction; the document mentions no daily limit.
The flat fee is only part of the cost. Trades run on a request-for-quote basis: the customer asks for a price and gets a quote that is binding for a short time, built from a market reference price plus a DekaBank spread. The price list does not quantify that spread, and it says DekaBank may adjust pricing for larger volumes or in volatile markets, for example by widening the spread or shortening the quote’s validity. Cryptoticker, which went through the contract documents, found no figure for it in any of them. Without a figure, the total cost cannot be compared with neobrokers or with Bitpanda.
The fixed fee weighs most on small orders. On a 66 euro purchase, 0.99 euro equals 1.5%, the rate the cooperative VR Bank Würzburg charges per trade, according to Cryptoticker. On 500 euros it falls to about 0.2%, and on 5,000 euros to about 0.02%, before any spread.
Behind the quotes, Börse Stuttgart Digital supplies DekaBank with crypto liquidity through an institutional brokerage service, under a partnership the two announced in October 2025. Crypto bought this way is not covered by Germany’s statutory deposit guarantee, DekaBank’s product page states: that scheme protects bank deposits, not crypto-assets.
From a “no” in June 2022 to a launch in October 2026
The Sparkassen first floated crypto trading in their app in 2021. The idea split the group, and the then DSGV president, Helmut Schleweis, compared bitcoin to Ponzi schemes, BTC-Echo recalled on 19 October. In late June 2022, after a meeting of the DSGV board, the association recommended that its members not offer crypto trading; a spokeswoman said Sparkassen had to protect customers from incalculable risks, according to it-finanzmagazin’s report of 28 June 2022.
The reversal came on 30 June and 1 July 2025. Under president Ulrich Reuter, the DSGV board agreed that DekaBank would build an offer for bitcoin and ether, for customers who decide on their own, with no active promotion and a target of about a year, as Bloomberg and it-finanzmagazin reported at the time. The finished product arrived some 15 months later, with five coins instead of two.
On 13 October 2025 Börse Stuttgart Digital and DekaBank said they would build the retail offer together, covering trading, custody and the front end, with a launch planned for 2026. “Wir freuen uns, als Partner der DekaBank ein Krypto-Angebot für die Sparkassen im Retailsegment zu ermöglichen,” said Matthias Voelkel, chief executive of Börse Stuttgart Group, at the time. DekaBank had already run crypto custody and trading for institutional clients since 2024.
The motive is competition. Trade Republic, Revolut and N26 already sell crypto to young Germans, and the Sparkassen want to keep first contact with customers who will later need a mortgage, die-privatbank.de argued on launch day.
What ESMA’s MiCA register shows for DekaBank
The licence facts are in the public record. The interim MiCA register kept by ESMA, the EU markets authority, lists DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale, based in Frankfurt and supervised by BaFin, under “Article 60 – Notification”. That is the route for banks: under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, a credit institution notifies its supervisor of the crypto services it will provide instead of applying for a separate authorisation.
The register file, downloaded on 19 October at about 18:40 UTC, shows two entries. From 1 December 2025 DekaBank may provide custody and administration of crypto-assets for clients, execute client orders and run transfer services. From 25 June 2026 it may also exchange crypto-assets for funds, the service that lets a customer pay in euros and sell back into euros. Every piece of the retail offer is therefore covered in the register.
Before MiCA, BaFin and the European Central Bank granted DekaBank a German crypto custody licence in December 2024, Ledger Insights reported. The DSGV now points to MiCA as what made the step possible. Our guide to the MiCA regulation explains how the regime works for banks and crypto firms. DekaBank is not the only German lender to use this route this month: Deutsche Bank entered the MiCA register on 16 October and plans a custody launch within weeks.
No transfers to your own hardware wallet, for now
DekaBank holds the private keys in its own custody system, in a jointly managed omnibus wallet where the keys are held in trust for customers, its product page says; the individual Sparkassen hold no coins. In practice a Sparkasse customer owns a claim on DekaBank recorded in its books, not coins at a blockchain address he or she controls.
Coins can leave, but only in one direction. DekaBank’s product page limits deliveries to wallet addresses held at certain crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) and excludes any other address. BTC-Echo and The Cryptonomist read this as ruling out, for now, a direct transfer to a personal hardware wallet. The page does not name the providers.
The minimum delivery amounts in DekaBank’s price information are 0.0001 BTC, 0.01 ETH, 10 XRP, 0.1 SOL and 100 POL, Cryptoticker reported, valuing them at roughly 7 to 22 euros at 10 October prices. With bitcoin near $81,920 at 16:22 UTC on 19 October, the bitcoin minimum is worth about $8.
DekaBank has not explained the restriction in the documents we could read. EU transfer-of-funds rules already make crypto providers collect sender and recipient details and add checks on transfers to self-hosted wallets, and the EU’s anti-money-laundering regulation will ban anonymous crypto accounts from 10 July 2027. For bitcoin users who follow the “not your keys, not your coins” rule, the result is plain: self-custody is not on offer through the Sparkasse app, so moving coins to a cold wallet means a detour through another regulated provider.
How the Sparkassen offer compares with Volksbanken, ING, BPCE and Banca Sella
The Sparkassen are late. Germany’s cooperative banks, a direct bank and France’s savings banks moved earlier, each with its own model.
Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken: meinKrypto
The cooperative banks sell crypto through “meinKrypto”, a platform built by DZ Bank with the IT provider Atruvia. DZ Bank received its MiCA licence from BaFin at the end of December 2025, it-finanzmagazin reported on 24 March 2026. Custody sits with Börse Stuttgart Digital and orders are executed via EUWAX; the launch coins are bitcoin, ether, Litecoin and Cardano, on an execution-only basis.
Six Volksbanken had been piloting it since late 2024, it-finanzmagazin reported in July 2025, out of a sector of a little over 670 cooperative banks. VR Bank Würzburg, one of the cooperative banks already selling crypto in its app, charges 1.5% on each purchase and each sale, plus a spread, Cryptoticker reported.
ING Germany: ETNs in the securities account
ING Germany took a different route. Since early February 2026 its retail customers can buy physically backed exchange-traded notes and products on bitcoin, ether and Solana from issuers such as 21Shares, Bitwise and VanEck through their ING securities account, The Block reported on 3 February. There is no wallet and no key at all: the customer holds a security, not a coin.
France, BPCE: Hexarq inside the Caisse d’Epargne app
In France, the BPCE group (Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne) started in-app crypto trading through its subsidiary Hexarq on 8 December 2025, initially for about 2 million clients of four regional banks, Cointelegraph reported. The coins are bitcoin, ether, Solana and the USDC stablecoin. The price is 2.99 euros a month plus 1.5% per trade, with a 1 euro minimum. A BPCE press release of 10 March 2026 said retail clients of 13 institutions would have access during March, with Banque Palatine following in April; the group aims at its 12 million retail clients over time, Cointelegraph reported. Hexarq obtained its MiCA authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider from France’s AMF in early February 2026, BPCE said.
Italy: Banca Sella prepares custody, no retail trading yet
In Italy, Banca Sella became the first bank to complete its MiCA notification with the Banca d’Italia, AziendaBanca reported on 27 May 2026. It may start custody and transfer of crypto-assets for specific types of customers during 2026; no retail trading service has been announced. As far as the sources we read show, no large Italian bank sells bitcoin to retail customers inside its own app yet.
| Sparkassen (DekaBank) | Volksbanken (meinKrypto) | BPCE (Hexarq) | ING Germany | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 19 Oct 2026, bank by bank | Pilot since late 2024, wider in 2026 | 8 Dec 2025 | Early Feb 2026 |
| What you buy | BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL, POL | BTC, ETH, LTC, ADA | BTC, ETH, SOL, USDC | Crypto ETNs/ETPs |
| Reported cost | 0.99 euro per order plus an unpublished spread | 1.5% per trade plus spread at VR Bank Würzburg (Cryptoticker) | 2.99 euros a month plus 1.5% per trade, 1 euro minimum | Broker and product fees |
| Custody | DekaBank, omnibus wallet | Börse Stuttgart Digital Custody | Hexarq | Product issuer; no wallet |
| Withdrawal | Approved providers only, no hardware wallet | Not established in our sources | Not established in our sources | Not applicable |
| Reach | 230+ of about 350 Sparkassen interested; 30 to 40 added a month | Six pilot banks; about 670 cooperative banks in the sector | 4 banks, then 13 institutions (Mar 2026) | ING Germany customers |
On a 100 euro purchase, before spreads, that means 0.99 euro at a Sparkasse, 1.50 euros at VR Bank Würzburg plus its spread, and 1.50 euros at a BPCE bank plus the 2.99 euro monthly fee. Above roughly 66 euros the Sparkasse flat fee is the lowest of the three in percentage terms, but the unknown spread could change that comparison.
Custodial bitcoin at a bank, in plain terms
Buying bitcoin through a Sparkasse is custodial: the bank, here DekaBank, holds the keys and keeps a record of what each customer owns, much as a broker holds shares. The customer does not need to manage a seed phrase, and cannot lose one. The cost is control: transfers out depend on the bank’s rules, and the coins sit with the custodian. Our guide to crypto wallets and custody sets out the trade-offs between custodial accounts, hot wallets and hardware wallets.
Open points: the spread, the first banks and the withdrawal list
Several facts were still missing on launch evening. The Sparkassen that went live first have not been named. The spread is not published. Nothing says which providers can receive withdrawals, or whether savings plans or staking will follow. No user figures exist yet, and neither DekaBank nor the DSGV had posted a press release on the launch when we checked.
The next markers are already set. The DSGV expects 30 to 40 Sparkassen to join each month, with a large share of the interested ones connected in the first half of 2027. Deutsche Bank plans its custody launch within weeks, BPCE is widening its rollout, and Banca Sella’s custody service is due during 2026. The EU ban on anonymous crypto accounts applies from 10 July 2027.