Spanish banking giant BBVA has become the first major lender in the country to roll out 24/7 retail cryptocurrency trading, giving its customers direct access to Bitcoin and Ether through its existing digital banking platforms.
The service, approved by Spain’s securities regulator CNMV, marks a milestone in the integration of digital assets into Europe’s traditional financial system.
BBVA, Spain’s second-largest bank with more than $900 billion in assets under management and nearly 70 million clients worldwide, announced that customers will be able to buy, sell, and manage Bitcoin and Ether directly via its mobile application.
The new offering is fully integrated into the same rails BBVA already uses for foreign exchange, providing users with a familiar environment for trading.
Initially, the service will be available to a limited number of clients before expanding across Spain in the coming months.
The initiative is supported by Singapore-based SGX FX, whose technology allows aggregation, pricing, distribution, and risk management for financial institutions.
SGX FX, which operates data centers across London, New York, Tokyo, and Singapore, has worked with BBVA to ensure the system matches the operational standards of global FX markets.
According to SGX FX chief operating officer Vinay Trivedi, the integration allows banks to move quickly into digital assets “without the need for a full stack replacement.”
BBVA will manage customer holdings using its in-house cryptographic key storage platform rather than relying on external providers.
While the service will offer users a secure and user-friendly interface, BBVA emphasized that customers will retain full control over their investments, as the bank will not provide advisory services.
Luis Martins, BBVA’s global head of macro trading, described digital assets as an increasingly integral part of global finance and said the bank’s clients want access to them within the same trusted system they already use.
Gonzalo Rodríguez, head of retail banking at BBVA Spain, added that the goal is to simplify the process for customers by making crypto investing “fully digital and accessible directly from mobile phones,” while ensuring it remains underpinned by the security of a major bank.
The move has been made possible under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, which provides a uniform framework for crypto services across the bloc.
Market observers see BBVA’s launch as potentially the first in a series of similar steps by other European financial institutions.
