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Banca Sella gets green light to provide crypto services to customers in Italian first
The fintech-forward private bank said it is the first Italian lender to get Bank of Italy approval under MiCA to offer digital asset custody and transfers.
May 27, 2026, 1:43 p.m. 2 min read
What to know:
- Banca Sella said it secured a crypto services license from the Bank of Italy under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, clearing the way for it to offer digital-asset services later this year.
- The private lender plans to offer a platform for the custody, transfer and receipt of digital assets for selected corporate clients later this year.
- Sella joins about 20 major European banks already offering crypto services under MiCA and is a founding member of the Qivalis stablecoin initiative and EU tokenization projects such as Pontes and Appia aimed at strengthening the bloc’s financial autonomy.
“Being approved as a crypto-asset services provider will enable Banca Sella to launch in 2026 a solution dedicated to the custody, transfer and receipt of digital assets aimed at selected categories of customers,” the bank said in a website statement.
While the bank’s initial retail crypto plans were routed through its mobile-banking venture, Hype. This new corporate-facing infrastructure relies on a compliance partnership with blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis and an internal digital asset pilot initially built alongside Fireblocks.
Sella joins the roughly 20 major European banks offering crypto asset services under MiCA, including Germany’s Commerzbank and LBBW, France’s Société Générale FORGE and Spain’s BBVA.
