Spain’s second-largest bank introduces continuous bitcoin and ether trading via its app.
According to Coindesk, Spanish banking giant BBVA has become the first major financial institution in the country to offer around-the-clock digital asset trading services. Bank clients can now access bitcoin and ether directly through the digital platforms they already use.
The initiative, approved by Spain’s National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), marks another step in integrating digital assets into the traditional financial system.
BBVA, Spain’s second-largest bank with over $900 billion in assets under management and nearly 70 million clients worldwide, announced that users will be able to buy, sell, and manage bitcoin and ether directly through its mobile application.
In the initial phase, the service will be available to a select group of clients, with a gradual rollout across Spain in the coming months. The technological infrastructure is supported by SGX FX, a Singapore-based firm specializing in aggregation, pricing, distribution, and risk management solutions for financial institutions.
According to Vinay Trivedi, COO of SGX FX, the integration allows banks to quickly enter the digital asset sector “without the need for a full stack replacement.”
Gonzalo Rodríguez, head of retail banking at BBVA Spain, stated that the goal is to simplify the process by making cryptocurrency investment “fully digital and accessible directly from mobile phones,” while ensuring the security of a major financial institution.
Last June, the bank began advising wealth management clients to allocate between 3% and 7% of their portfolios to digital assets, depending on their risk tolerance.
