Commerzbank has applied for a cryptocurrency custody license

In fact, the authorities granted BaFin licenses to the following financial institutions that want to store and exchange digital currencies for their customers. This license is required to do business with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) as of January 1, 2020. (ETH).

Why do I need a BaFin license?

The decision to operate a regulated financial service without a license carries criminal penalties of up to five years in prison for those responsible. However, the law provides generous transitional provisions for organizations that have already conducted relevant transactions prior to the implementation of the directive.

Commerzbank, which serves some 28,000 corporate customer groups and nearly 11 million private and corporate clients in Germany, plans to offer cryptocurrency custody services primarily to institutional clients.

It has joined a long list of organizations that have applied to become cryptocurrency custodians. According to the financial authority, it has received 25 license applications and accepted four of them.

Coinbase is the first company in Germany to receive a cryptocurrency custodian license in January 2021. Commerzbank was the first bank to apply for the license.

As demand has increased, banks have expanded their operations.

Banks around the world are increasingly interested in expanding their services to include cryptocurrencies. One of them is banking giant Goldman Sachs, which hopes to launch crypto services for its high-net-worth clients in the second quarter of 2022.

In addition, Blythe Masters, a board member and fintech expert at Credit Suisse, claims that bitcoin does not pose a threat to fiat currencies or the banking industry. On the other hand, some cryptocurrency experts believe that cryptocurrencies will make certain banking services "irrelevant.