Banca Sella first Italian bank cleared for crypto services

Banca Sella has become the first bank in Italy to receive approval to offer cryptocurrency services, completing a regulatory notification process with the Bank of Italy. The bank plans to launch a platform for the custody, transfer, and receipt of digital assets in 2026, initially targeting selected categories of customers.

The approval was granted under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, which allows credit institutions to provide certain crypto services after notifying their national regulator. Banca Sella, which manages over 50 billion euros in assets and serves more than three million customers, said it completed a formal 40-day notification process.

Andrea Tessera, the bank’s managing director of digital banking, stated that the planned service is part of a broader shift toward instant, interoperable, and programmable payment models driven by the tokenization of currencies and assets. The bank’s initial offering will focus on custody and transfer solutions and does not currently include trading services.

This move follows several years of digital asset development by the bank. Banca Sella participated in a distributed ledger technology pilot...