Intesa Sanpaolo Enhances Digital Asset Branch to Facilitate Cryptocurrency Direct Trading

PANews reports that Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, the premier banking institution in Italy, is expanding its digital asset division’s services to incorporate cryptocurrency spot trading, signaling a major progression for conventional banks into new financial territories.

Launched in 2023, the bank’s own cryptocurrency trading division falls under its corporate and investment banking wing. The division was initially set up to handle the trading of cryptocurrency options, futures, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). While spot trading operations have yet to start, the desk is prepared to do so, having secured the necessary internal consent and set up the technical infrastructure roughly one month prior.

Managing Director Cassie Craddock from Ripple for UK and European regions has verified that Intesa Sanpaolo is in collaboration with Ripple Custody, which was previously termed Metaco, in order to devise custody services for a variety of tokenized assets. This cooperative enterprise seeks to augment the bank’s proficiency in secure digital asset management, indicative of the burgeoning inclination among legacy financial institutions to assimilate cryptocurrency services into their palette of offerings.