The German subsidiary of Crypto Finance and Austria’s Bitpanda cryptocurrency exchange are amongst the first wave of firms to receive MiCAR licenses by BaFin. Crypto Finance is the Deutsche Börse owned crypto exchange headquartered in Switzerland.
The German regulator was slow to start the authorizations as it did not receive regulatory approval from parliament until just before Christmas. That was because of the collapse of the German coalition. Apart from bringing in pan-European crypto standards, MiCAR also allows for passporting, enabling any organization with a MiCAR license to operate in other EU states.
Ten days ago, the Börse Stuttgart was the first to receive a BaFin license. It is one of the most active institutions in the crypto space in Germany. In 2019 it launched a retail crypto service with Axel Springer. On the institutional side, it is the crypto partner of DZ bank, which is starting to roll out crypto services to its 700-plus community banks it serves.
Both Crypto Finance and Bitpanda also have institutional partnerships. Crypto Finance is providing services to Commerzbank for its corporate clients, and Bitpanda has a similar deal with state-owned LBBW.
“This milestone enables us to bring easy and safe investing to over 450 million people, unlocking unparalleled growth potential in a market we’re ready to fully conquer,” said Eric Demuth, CEO and Co-Founder of Bitpanda.
