Spanish banking leader Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) has received the go-ahead from the nation’s financial overseer to provide bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) trading services to its clients, as reported by Reuters.
This approval coincides with the full implementation of the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation throughout the European Union. It signifies the culmination of a protracted initiative by BBVA to grant its clients access to digital assets.
In 2020, CoinDesk disclosed that BBVA was considering exploring the cryptocurrency space, awaiting regulatory clearance as MiCA was not yet active.
Initially, BBVA aimed to roll out its crypto services from Switzerland rather than from Spain or other EU nations due to Switzerland’s already established regulatory framework for digital assets under the oversight of the Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).
Earlier this year, BBVA commenced crypto trading in Turkey via a local subsidiary.
BBVA is not the first European bank to venture into the crypto space. Germany’s Deutsche Bank has been working on an Ethereum rollup with ZKsync and is providing custody services in collaboration with Taurus, while Société Générale’s SG-FORGE is set to introduce a euro stablecoin on the XRP Ledger, according to prior reports by CoinDesk.
