Germany's cooperative and savings banks are rolling out cryptocurrency trading to tens of millions of retail customers, reversing a position held just four years ago when they cited 'incalculable risks.' DZ Bank has already secured a MiCA licence from BaFin and launched the 'meinKrypto' platform integrated into its VR Banking App, supporting Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Cardano. DekaBank is building a separate platform for the Sparkassen network's roughly 50 million customers, expected later this year. The shift was enabled by the EU's MiCA regulation, which replaced fragmented national rules with a unified licensing framework. Banks are betting on customer trust — Germans trust their primary bank more than twice as much as crypto exchanges — and on staying relevant against digital-first competitors. Critics, including academics and the savings banks' own lobby group, warn that traditional customers may not fully understand the risks of highly speculative crypto assets.
