Raiffeisen Bank International will offer Bitcoin services across Europe under an expanded partnership with Bitpanda.

Core Rollout: A Group-Wide Banking Channel for Bitcoin

Austrian banking group Raiffeisen is rolling out Bitcoin trading for its 18 million customers, according to a statement issued on Wednesday by Raiffeisen Bank International. The bank said it is working with brokerage Bitpanda as part of the initiative, positioning the effort as an expansion of an existing partnership rather than a one-off product launch.

The announcement arrives as top banks worldwide launch crypto trading and custody services. BBVA, Santander's Openbank, Germany's cooperative and savings banks, SoFi, PNC, Charles Schwab and Morgan Stanley have all either launched or announced retail crypto trading over the past 18 months. Against that backdrop, Raiffeisen Bank International is bringing the same category of service to a customer base that is concentrated in Austria and Central and Eastern Europe.

Michael Höllerer, chief executive of Raiffeisen Bank International, pointed to customer demand as the driving force. "We are seeing growing demand for crypto assets in our markets, which we are addressing with a strong, reputable partner," he said. He added that the bank is committed to "meeting our customers' needs in the best possible way."

From an Austrian Pilot to a Single European Model

The new agreement builds on an arrangement that began in Austria. In 2024, Raiffeisen Landesbank Niederösterreich-Wien became the first traditional bank in the EU to offer crypto trading within its existing banking environment, using Bitpanda's technology.

That earlier setup was market-specific. The expanded deal changes the structure: the group is moving away from striking separate integrations market by market and instead setting up a single approach for the whole group. In practice, this means the same partnership framework can be applied across the bank's European footprint, rather than being rebuilt country by country.

What Bitpanda Enterprise Adds to the Bank

Bitpanda Enterprise provides banks, fintechs, brokers, trading firms and family offices with the tools to offer digital asset products to retail and corporate clients. The service is designed to let established financial institutions add crypto products without building every layer from scratch.

Its services include investment infrastructure, liquidity, custody, payments, stablecoins and tokenisation, with an emphasis on compliance and scalability. For Raiffeisen Bank International, that infrastructure is the technical and operational base behind a Bitcoin trading service delivered inside a traditional banking relationship.

Bank Scale, Ownership and Regional Reach

Raiffeisen Bank International treats Austria and Central and Eastern Europe as its home market, with subsidiary banks in 11 countries in the region. The group has about 42,000 employees serving 18.8 million customers through roughly 1,300 branches, most of them in Central and Eastern Europe.

Its shares trade on the Vienna Stock Exchange. Regional Raiffeisen banks own about 61.2 per cent of the company, with the rest in free float. The ownership structure helps explain why a group-wide rollout is significant: the bank is not operating as a standalone digital brand, but as part of a broad regional banking network.

What Readers Can Take From the Announcement

For readers, the main development is not simply that a bank is adding Bitcoin trading. It is that Raiffeisen Bank International is moving from a national pilot to a single group-level framework across Europe, using Bitpanda's technology to offer crypto access inside existing banking channels.

The broader competitive context is also important. The past 18 months have seen multiple large banks either launch or announce retail crypto trading, and this deal shows that established banking groups are now exploring standardized ways to serve demand across multiple markets at once.

The underlying report was published by Bitcoin Magazine, with Mathew Di Salvo credited as the writer.