Last week Unicaja Bank, one of Spain’s top five banks, said its venture arm invested in cryptocurrency exchange Bit2Me. The startup has more than a million customers and was the first to receive a registration from the Bank of Spain as a cryptocurrency service provider.
The terms of the deal were not announced, but the bank takes a stake of more than 5% in the exchange and joins its board. Additionally, the companies signed a commercial collaboration agreement.
The bank is keen to have a technology partner to explore three emerging areas: new opportunities created by the EU’s MiCA regulations; the tokenization of assets under the DLT Pilot Regime and blockchain more broadly; and the digital euro.
Isidro Rubiales, CEO of Unicaja, said the deal will help the bank “anticipate the future and incorporate solutions that enhance our services and facilitate our adaptation to the changes demanded by customers.”
In turn, Bit2Me plans to offer Unicaja banking services to its customers.
While plenty of banks have cryptocurrency initiatives and crypto related investments, it is relatively unusual for banks to invest directly in crypto exchanges. In 2021 Siam Commercial Bank’s holding company, SCBX, planned to buy 51% of Thailand’s largest crypto exchange BitKub for $537 million. Eventually SCBX dropped the deal when the securities regulator required BitKub to make several changes.
Standard Chartered’s SC Ventures created a joint venture, Zodia Markets, in which Hong Kong crypto exchange OSL’s parent is a minority shareholder. That way Zodia could take advantage of OSL’s knowledge and technology.
