DekaBank Brings Crypto Trading To German Sparkassen

DekaBank has launched the service for adult customers of participating German Sparkassen. Customers can place orders after opening a Deka crypto account through the investing section of the Sparkasse app. They must also hold a current account with a participating savings bank.

The service, called “Krypto – powered by Deka,” offers Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP and Polygon’s POL. As of Oct. 20, the participating-bank directory listed Frankfurter Sparkasse, Sparkasse Rottal-Inn, Niederrheinische Sparkasse RheinLippe, Taunus Sparkasse and Sparkasse Karlsruhe.

Each Sparkasse decides independently whether to offer the service. DekaBank plans to expand the rollout in stages over the coming months. DekaBank and the bank directory have not disclosed how many customers have opened crypto accounts or traded through the service.

Each purchase or sale costs €0.99. DekaBank also adds a spread to a market reference price, but its pricing sheet does not provide the spread rate. Orders have no minimum size and are limited to €250,000 per transaction. Technical problems or maintenance could prevent customers from trading at their preferred time or price.

DekaBank holds customers’ cryptocurrencies centrally and keeps the private keys in an omnibus wallet. Customers cannot transfer their holdings directly to personal self-custody wallets. Outbound transfers are limited to addresses held by approved crypto-asset service providers.

The October whitelist includes Crypto Finance (Deutschland) GmbH, Tangany GmbH, Börse Stuttgart Digital Custody GmbH and Bullish Europe GmbH. DekaBank lists custody and permitted outbound transfers as free. The minimum delivery amount for Bitcoin is 0.0001 BTC.

DekaBank warns that customers could lose their entire crypto investment. The holdings are not covered by Germany’s statutory deposit protection scheme.