Highlights

  • UniCredit is considering expanding into digital asset custody and brokerage, and is in the process of selecting a technology provider, Bloomberg reports.
  • The Italian bank is weighing tokenized investment products, fixed-income securities, stablecoin access for customers, and giving clients direct crypto exposure.
  • The move builds on a string of prior steps: BlackRock IBIT-linked structured products, Italy's first tokenized mini-bond on a public blockchain, and a founding role in the Qivalis euro-stablecoin consortium.
  • UniCredit also picked up a minority stake in Germany's VC Trade lending platform this week, adding to its expanding digital-asset footprint.

UniCredit, one of Italy's largest banks, is exploring an expansion into digital asset custody and brokerage services and is in the process of selecting a technology provider to build the infrastructure needed to hold digital assets and facilitate their purchase and sale, Bloomberg reported. The discussions remain at an early stage, but the directions under consideration include developing tokenized investment products and fixed-income securities, letting customers use stablecoins, and giving clients direct exposure to cryptocurrencies. The move would extend a series of digital-asset steps UniCredit has already taken this year, from offering crypto-linked structured products to professional clients to helping found a consortium building a euro-denominated stablecoin.

A Bank Building Digital-Asset Capability in Layers

UniCredit's push into custody and brokerage would be the latest in a string of moves the bank has made over the past year. It has already offered professional clients structured products linked to BlackRock's spot bitcoin ETF, IBIT, giving wealth clients indirect crypto exposure through a familiar instrument rather than a direct token purchase. Separately, the bank issued Italy's first tokenized mini-bond on a public blockchain, an early test of the same tokenized-securities infrastructure it's now reportedly looking to scale up. UniCredit is also a founding member of Qivalis, a consortium of European banks — including BNP Paribas, ING, CaixaBank, Danske Bank, DekaBank, KBC Bank, Raiffeisen Bank International, SEB and Banca Sella — building a MiCA-compliant euro-denominated stablecoin using Fireblocks infrastructure, targeting a launch in the second half of 2026. Just this week, UniCredit added to that footprint by acquiring a minority stake in VC Trade, a German lending-market platform.

Related: Standard Chartered Becomes First Bank to Distribute Hong Kong's HKDAP Stablecoin

Taken together, the pattern is a bank building digital-asset capability in layers: first through indirect exposure products for wealthy clients, then through a proof-of-concept tokenized bond, then through a shared-infrastructure stablecoin consortium, and now potentially through in-house custody and brokerage that would let it hold and trade digital assets directly rather than relying entirely on partners and consortiums.

Banks Are Racing to Build What Crypto-Native Firms Already Have

UniCredit isn't alone in making this bet. Major banks globally have been racing to build out digital-asset capabilities for their existing client bases rather than cede the business to crypto-native platforms: JPMorgan Chase has been building out a retail digital-assets team aimed at its roughly 80 million customers, and a wave of similar moves has swept through European and Asian banks over the past year as regulatory clarity around custody and stablecoins has improved. For a bank the size of UniCredit, offering in-house crypto custody and brokerage would mean it no longer needs to route wealth-management clients' digital-asset interest through third-party structured products or partner platforms, capturing more of that revenue directly while also controlling the compliance and security stack end-to-end.

That shift carries real competitive implications for crypto-native custodians, which have spent years building the specialized infrastructure that traditional banks are now trying to replicate or buy. Copper, one of the more established independent crypto custodians, has recently seen its own sale price slide toward $200 million amid leadership turnover — a reminder that as banks like UniCredit build or acquire custody capability internally, the market for standalone crypto custody providers is getting more competitive rather than less, even as the total addressable market for digital-asset custody keeps growing.

What's Next

UniCredit's discussions are still described as early stage, so the next milestone to watch is whether the bank actually selects and announces a technology partner for the custody and brokerage build-out, which would signal the project has moved from exploratory to committed. The Qivalis stablecoin's targeted second-half-2026 launch is a nearer-term catalyst that will test whether UniCredit's broader digital-asset strategy can actually ship a live product, and its outcome will likely shape how aggressively the bank pursues the custody and brokerage expansion Bloomberg described. Investors and competitors alike will also be watching whether UniCredit's moves prompt other large European banks without an existing digital-asset roadmap to accelerate their own plans rather than risk falling further behind.

FAQ

What is UniCredit reportedly planning?
UniCredit is exploring expanding into digital asset custody and brokerage services and is selecting a technology provider to build the necessary infrastructure, according to Bloomberg.

What has UniCredit already done in crypto?
The bank has offered BlackRock IBIT-linked structured products to professional clients, issued Italy's first tokenized mini-bond on a public blockchain, and co-founded the Qivalis euro-stablecoin consortium.

What is Qivalis?
Qivalis is a consortium of European banks, including UniCredit, BNP Paribas and ING, building a MiCA-compliant euro-denominated stablecoin using Fireblocks infrastructure, targeting a launch in the second half of 2026.

Why are banks like UniCredit building crypto custody in-house?
In-house custody lets banks capture digital-asset revenue directly from existing clients rather than routing it through third-party structured products, while giving them full control over compliance and security.