Santander has confirmed that Openbank, its digital banking platform, will soon enable cryptocurrency trading in Spain.
The service, which is already available in Germany, will launch in the coming weeks and allow customers to invest in cryptoassets starting from just 1 euro.
The initial rollout will support five digital assets: Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, Polygon and Cardano. Transactions will carry a 1.49 per cent fee, with a minimum charge of 1 euro, and there will be no custody fee. The service will operate under the European Union’s MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets) regulation, which came into full effect earlier this year.
Speaking at Merge Madrid 2025, Coty de Monteverde, Group Vice President of Crypto and Blockchain at Banco Santander, said: “We have already launched crypto trading with Openbank in Germany, and in a few days or weeks, we will do the same in Spain.”
De Monteverde described the approach as gradual: “We are entering gradually: we start with a few tokens and, once we learn, we will add new functionalities when regulation allows.”
The integration of crypto into Openbank’s investment platform will enable users to manage both traditional and digital assets within a single, regulated banking environment. Santander aims to meet growing customer demand for secure and compliant access to crypto investments through a familiar financial institution.
The announcement was made during a panel titled “Bank Strategies for Crypto in Spain and Latin America”, which included representatives from Börse Stuttgart Digital, Bancolombia’s Wenia, and Binance. The discussion highlighted the varying strategies banks are adopting under MiCA, from launching their own stablecoins to forming partnerships with established crypto platforms.
The launch comes as European banks increasingly move to integrate digital assets into their core offerings, following the implementation of MiCA, which provides a unified regulatory framework for cryptoasset services across the EU.