Italy’s Second Biggest Bank UniCredit Is Weighting up Crypto Custody: Report
Bitcoin Magazine Italy’s Second Biggest Bank UniCredit Is Weighting up Crypto Custody: Report UniCredit is working on crypto custody as other European banks work on digital asset services. This post...
UniCredit is working on crypto custody as other European banks work on digital asset services.
Italy’s second largest bank is considering expanding into digital asset offerings, including custody, according to reports.
According to a Friday Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the matter, Milan-based UniCredit is selecting a technology provider that would allow it to build the infrastructure needed to hold digital assets and facilitate their buying and selling.
Bloomberg’s reporting added that tokenized investment products and fixed-income securities, the use of stablecoins and exposure to cryptocurrencies were all on the cards.
JUST IN: 🇮🇹 Italy’s 2nd-largest bank UniCredit is considering to offer crypto asset custody — Bloomberg 👀 pic.twitter.com/NAZKJBdcES
The news comes as other banks in Europe expand crypto offerings. Spain moved first on retail, with BBVA rolling out bitcoin trading and custody to all customers via its app, using its own custody infrastructure rather than a third party; Santander’s Openbank followed with its own trading service.
Cecabank — a Spanish custodian with over €400bn under management that acts as backbone for 100+ financial institutions — went live with crypto custody in June via a partnership with Bit2Me.
And in Germany, Deutsche Bank is building custody with Bitpanda’s technology arm, while Taurus and DZ Bank got BaFin approval in January for its meinKrypto platform.
New regulation in the European Union — Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) — gives banks a legal definition, a supervisor, and a familiar set of obligations to launch crypto services.
UniCredit is one 37 lenders across 15 European countries working together to create a company called Qivalis with the aim of issuing a euro-denominated stablecoin.
Last year, the bank said it was offering professional clients a structured product tied to BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust exchange-traded fund, with full protection against losses.
Asanat Analysis — Why it matters
UniCredit's custody exploration signals institutional infrastructure normalizing across European banking. MiCA's January 2023 passage created the regulatory scaffolding—a supervised custody classification and clear obligations—that transformed crypto from compliance risk to manageable product line. UniCredit joining BBVA, Santander, and Deutsche Bank reflects a coordinated sector shift, not isolated experimentation. The bank's dual-track approach (custody infrastructure + Qivalis stablecoin consortium participation) shows how legacy finance is hedging: building both plumbing and native products.
What's material: this moves beyond retail novelty into systemic finance. When €400bn+ custodians (Cecabank) and tier-1 lenders adopt parallel stacks, custody fragments across legacy and crypto rails simultaneously. UniCredit's selection of a technology provider matters—it determines whether EU banks build proprietary infrastructure (capital-intensive, slower, BBVA model) or partner with specialized fintechs, reshaping which entities own custody relationships. The Qivalis stablecoin signals banks view crypto rails as inevitable payments infrastructure, not speculative sidecar.
Historical context: this echoes 2016-2017 when banks first investigated blockchain. The difference—MiCA provides regulatory clarity, custody has matured via Kraken/Fidelity/Coinbase institutional arms, and macro conditions make yield-bearing stablecoins strategically relevant. UniCredit's 2025 move comes as deposit rates normalize; crypto custody offerings generate fees without balance-sheet risk.