Overview
- A joint framework announced Sept. 23 by Raiffeisen Bank International and Bitpanda could let Raiffeisen network banks in 11 Central and Eastern European markets offer crypto through their existing banking apps.
- Bitpanda Enterprise will supply the underlying technology while Bitpanda’s April 2025 Markets in Crypto‑Assets (MiCA) authorisation from Austria’s FMA supports cross‑EU compliant custody and trading services.
- Individual Raiffeisen subsidiaries will decide whether to participate, which products to list, and when to launch services, so rollouts will be phased and vary by local regulation.
- The agreement targets a potential reach of roughly 18 to 18.8 million customers based on RBI’s network, but that figure represents possible coverage rather than the number of clients who will immediately gain access.
- The move builds on a 2024 pilot in Austria where RLB NÖ‑Wien used Bitpanda technology to put crypto inside a bank app and reflects a broader trend of banks using specialised crypto infrastructure to offer digital assets through trusted customer relationships.