Germany's Sparkassen savings banks started offering customers the ability to buy and hold cryptocurrencies directly through their banking app on Monday, October 19, in what amounts to the largest retail crypto distribution event yet seen in the European Union's biggest economy.
The service, called Krypto powered by Deka, is operated by DekaBank, the Sparkassen group's asset manager. It lets customers buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana and Polygon from within the same app they use for everyday banking, with account opening requiring three clicks in the savings section plus a push TAN validation. The Sparkassen network is aiming to make the offer available to as many as 50 million clients, with most of the roughly 350 independent savings banks expected to have activated it by the first half of 2027.
Because each Sparkasse operates independently, the rollout will not happen uniformly. Joachim Schmalzl, a board member of the DSGV, the federation representing the savings banks, told dpa that timing is a local decision: "When a savings bank starts, it's up to them to decide." The network expects between 30 and 40 individual savings banks to switch on the service each month as the rollout proceeds.
Pricing and custody terms
DekaBank charges a flat fee of 0.99 euro per order, irrespective of the amount traded, and caps individual transactions at 250,000 euros. The bank also applies a spread to the price shown to customers, though the size of that spread is not disclosed in any public document.
Custody is centralised: private keys are held in trust by DekaBank in a shared omnibus wallet rather than assigned to individual customers. Withdrawals are restricted to addresses belonging to other licensed providers, meaning customers cannot move holdings directly to a personal wallet. The DSGV has also been explicit that the statutory deposit guarantee of 100,000 euros, which protects conventional bank deposits, does not extend to these crypto holdings. DekaBank retains the right to suspend trading in cases of abnormal market conditions, technical failure, or scheduled maintenance.
The federation describes the underlying assets in blunt terms, calling crypto-assets "highly speculative investments with a risk of total loss."
A rival network follows close behind
The Sparkassen are not alone in moving into crypto distribution. Germany's cooperative banking network, the Volksbanken, is preparing its own platform, meinKrypto, which is expected to receive BaFin approval by the end of December 2025. That service is aimed at a potential 30 million customers, meaning the two networks combined could eventually bring crypto trading within reach of roughly four-fifths of Germany's banked population.
For German retail investors, the existing tax treatment of crypto gains remains unchanged by the launch: private sales of crypto-assets stay exempt from tax up to 1,000 euros per year. On the asset side, Ethereum — one of the five tokens available through the new Sparkassen service — currently has a staking queue of 1.2 million ETH, a detail relevant to anyone considering exposure to the network beyond simple spot holding.
