Banca Sella said it has become the first Italian lender to obtain a crypto services license from the Bank of Italy under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation.
The private bank, which manages 50 billion euros ($54 billion) in assets and has more than 3.1 million clients, said it had completed a 40-day formal notification process, authorizing it to roll out crypto services to its clients later this year.
“Being approved as a crypto-asset service 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 statement published on its website.
While the bank’s initial retail crypto plans were routed through its mobile banking business, Hype. This new enterprise-facing infrastructure leverages a compliance partnership with blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis and an internal digital asset pilot initially built alongside Fireblocks.
Sella joins around 20 major European banks offering crypto asset services under MiCA, including Commerzbank and LBBW in Germany, Société Générale FORGE in France and BBVA in Spain.
The bank is among the founders of Qivalis, a group of 37 European banks aiming to issue a euro-denominated stablecoin this year.
Sella said it was involved in EU deposit and payment tokenization projects such as the Pontes and Appia projects, which aim to strengthen the bloc’s financial autonomy.
“The evolution of payments towards instantaneous, interoperable and programmable models – also driven by the tokenization of currencies and assets – is redefining financial infrastructures at European and global levels,” said Andrea Tessera, general manager of digital banking at the bank.
