Bitpanda Technology Solutions, a business-to-business infrastructure layer provider, has partnered with Coinbase (COIN) to provide European banks with access to digital assets. This will enable them to offer these assets to their customers.
The move comes despite the bearish crypto winter, and the damage done to the asset class from last year’s blowups and failures. According to BitPanda COO Lukas Enzersdorfer-Konrad, banks in Europe are keen to offer crypto to customers, especially now that the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework has been adopted.
Enzersdorfer-Konrad explained that Coinbase has a liquidity venue with their exchange as well as a custody setup, but not the whole infrastructure layer to connect to customers. Bitpanda’s crypto connectivity is already in operation with a number of banks, neo-banks and fintech platforms, such as Raiffeisenlandesbank, N26, Lydia, Plum and Hype.
Banks can see the data on their payment transactions and how much of their customers’ funds have been flowing out to crypto companies. This is leading them to realise how much business they are missing out on and how much more of their customer base would do that business if they had more trust in the process.
Guillaume Chatain, Coinbase’s head of Institutional Sales for EMEA & APAC, commented that they were delighted to partner with BitPanda and service institutions wanting to offer compliant and robust crypto services to their customers.
