Crypto as a service
Crypto as a Service (CaaS) lets a bank, broker or fintech offer digital-asset services using a specialist's infrastructure. The provider supplies components such as custody, wallets and trading through interfaces that connect to the customer's app. The bank or broker keeps its own brand and customer experience instead of building every technical layer itself.
The model helps financial firms add services such as buying and holding bitcoin or ether to an existing product. Customer checks, transaction controls and the handling of assets need clear responsibilities between the firm and its provider. The choice of modules and the provider's regulatory permissions determine which services can be integrated for a particular market.
What the provider runs and what the bank keeps
BitGo describes crypto as a service as an operating model in which the provider runs the crypto and fiat backend while the bank or fintech owns the interface and the customer relationship. The modules are custody, wallets with key management, trading, staking, transfers, fiat rails and an approval model with roles, spending limits and address allowlists. BitGo also points out that the institution keeps the oversight duty when it buys the service.
For a bank, the case is time and cost. The bank avoids building key management, onboarding and transaction controls itself, and its clients can buy crypto inside the app where they already keep their account.
Providers that banks in Germany use
Boerse Stuttgart Digital provides modular services for crypto trading and custody; it keeps the coins for meinKrypto from DZ BANK and supplies liquidity to DekaBank. Tangany in Munich sells custody as a service through an API and names more than 60 institutional clients. Bitpanda supplies trading and custody technology to banks such as LBBW. Crypto Finance, part of Deutsche Börse Group, trades for the corporate clients of Commerzbank and partners with KBC in Belgium.
Global providers sell the same model, with BitGo launching a crypto-as-a-service platform for fintechs and banks on 22 May 2025, run through BitGo Bank & Trust, according to its press release.
Who needs which license
The provider holds the license for what it does: Boerse Stuttgart Digital, Tangany and Bitpanda each hold MiCA licenses for custody. The bank that sells crypto to its own clients needs its own permission as well. A credit institution can notify its supervisor under Article 60 of MiCA; other firms need a full CASP license.
meinKrypto shows the split: DZ BANK holds the MiCA authorization for the platform, each Volksbank files a notification with BaFin, and Boerse Stuttgart Digital keeps the coins. For staking as a service, the page on staking providers in Europe covers the same questions.
Upcoming digital asset events in Germany
Crypto service providers at Finance Loop events
Tangany is an event partner of Finance Loop, and a speaker from Tangany was on the program of the Digital Finance Night that Finance Loop hosted during the Crypto Assets Conference. Blockdaemon, which provides institutional staking and node infrastructure, is also a Finance Loop partner.
Investment & Digital Assets
Risk & Compliance
What is crypto as a service?
Crypto as a service is a model in which a licensed provider runs custody, trading and compliance for crypto assets, and a bank or broker offers them to its clients under its own brand and in its own app.
Which banks in Germany use crypto as a service?
The Volksbanken use Boerse Stuttgart Digital through meinKrypto from DZ BANK, LBBW uses Bitpanda, and DekaBank gets liquidity from Boerse Stuttgart Digital. Commerzbank uses Crypto Finance for trading and keeps custody itself.
Is crypto as a service the same as white label crypto?
The terms are similar, although white label often names the software side, an exchange or wallet that runs under the buyer's brand. In crypto as a service the provider also operates regulated parts such as custody and liquidity, as Boerse Stuttgart Digital does for meinKrypto.
Crypto as a service and Finance Loop
Finance Loop covers crypto as a service in its Investment & Digital Assets track. Tangany is an event partner and Blockdaemon a partner of Finance Loop, and Finance Loop brings custody and platform teams of banks and providers together at events in Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg.
Finance Loop is a professional network supporting the institutional use of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, digital payments, cloud and blockchain solutions. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.