Bank Leumi, Israel's largest lender by assets, is making a second attempt at offering its customers direct access to Bitcoin. The bank has partnered with Galaxy Digital to launch trading in Bitcoin, Ether and Solana through its Leumi Trade capital markets application, with the service targeted for early 2027 pending approval from the Bank of Israel.
Under the arrangement, customers of Leumi and its mobile digital arm, Pepper, will be able to buy, hold and sell the selected assets in a dedicated, secured section of the app alongside stocks and bonds. Galaxy will supply both execution, through its GalaxyOne Institutional platform, and custody, via its Custody Infrastructure unit, the business formerly known as GK8 that Galaxy acquired out of Celsius's bankruptcy proceedings.
It is not Leumi's first run at this. In March 2022, Pepper Invest announced plans to offer Bitcoin and Ethereum trading through Paxos, only for the Bank of Israel to deny the necessary regulatory approval before the service ever launched. That denial has hung over every subsequent attempt by an Israeli bank to touch digital assets directly.
A Friendlier Regulator
The difference this time, according to Decrypt's reporting, is a materially softer regulatory posture. In mid-2026, the Bank of Israel eliminated automatic deposit delays and banned blanket refusals of funds originating from licensed crypto providers. The following month, the Capital Market Authority set wallet-security standards in the range of 2 to 2.5 million New Israeli Shekels and widened permitted trading to the top 50 coins by market capitalization, provided each exceeds a $500 million threshold. Galaxy itself obtained money-transmission licensing in May 2026, clearing another prerequisite for the partnership.
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Galaxy's own announcement confirms Bank Leumi is positioning itself as the first bank in Israel to offer this kind of integrated digital-asset trading, rather than routing customers to a third-party exchange. Lior Lamesh, CEO of Galaxy Israel, framed the deal in broader terms: "The future of finance will run on open, programmable rails, and we believe the banks that move first will define the era that follows."
Scale and Stakes
Bank Leumi serves roughly 2.5 million retail customers, giving the rollout a scale few crypto-native platforms in Israel can match if it clears its final regulatory hurdle. Because approval from the Bank of Israel remains the same checkpoint that killed the 2022 effort, the early-2027 timeline is contingent rather than confirmed — but the regulatory environment it now must clear looks considerably more permissive than it did four years ago.
