Banca Sella Becomes First Italian Bank Licensed for Bitcoin and Crypto Services Under MiCA

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Banca Sella has become the first Italian bank to receive authorization to offer cryptocurrency services under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, completing its notification process with the Bank of Italy on May 27, 2026. The Biella-based bank plans to launch custody and transfer services for digital assets before the end of 2026, targeting select customer categories. Under MiCA, credit institutions can enter certain crypto-asset services through a notification process with their national regulator — a lighter path than the full licensing required for non-bank entities. Banca Sella filed its notification 40 days in advance, as required, and cleared the process without a full licensing review. The bank did not announce trading services; its initial offering centers on custody, receipt, and transfer of digital assets for corporate and institutional clients. The move is the product of years of internal investment. Banca Sella participated in the Bank of Italy’s Fintech Milano Hub pilot program on distributed ledger technology beginning in 2022, and established a dedicated in-house DLT and Digital Assets team. In July 2025, the bank ran an internal crypto custody pilot using Fireblocks infrastructure, starting with a small group of employees holding digital assets including stablecoins. That pilot covered custody only — no trading — as executives assessed whether to extend services to the bank’s 1.4 million customers, who hold over €66 billion in assets under custody. Banca Sella is also a founding member of Qivalis, a consortium of 37 European banks building a MiCA-compliant euro-denominated stablecoin. The consortium — which includes ING, UniCredit, CaixaBank, KBC, Danske Bank, DekaBank, SEB, and Raiffeisen Bank International — is headquartered in Amsterdam and led by former Coinbase Germany CEO Jan-Oliver Sell. Qivalis targets a second-half 2026 launch, pending an e-money institution license from the Dutch central bank, and is designed to enable near-instant cross-border payments with programmable settlement. Banca Sella’s bitcoin and crypto push Italy’s broader banking sector is moving on crypto in parallel. Intesa Sanpaolo, the country’s largest bank, now holds over €200 million in Bitcoin and other crypto after opening a spot Bitcoin desk in January 2025. UniCredit has explored capital-protected notes linked to BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF and is also a Qivalis founding member. On the U.S. side, outside a handful of Wall Street firms with limited crypto exposure, US banks still lack the regulatory framework to offer custody, transfer, or stablecoin services at scale. The EU, by contrast, now has 17 authorized electronic money token issuers across 10 countries, with 25 regulated stablecoins approved under MiCA. “To be the first Italian bank able to offer custody and transfer services for crypto assets is a major step, in line with the broader European transition towards new digital models,” said Andrea Tessera, Managing Director of Digital Banking at Banca Sella. Tessera described the shift in payments toward “instant, interoperable, and programmable models” as one that is reshaping financial infrastructure at the European and global level. Banca Sella’s authorization positions the bank at the front of that transition as other Italian institutions work through the same regulatory steps.

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