Germany’s Sparkassen savings bank network opened cryptocurrency trading inside its banking app on Monday, giving retail customers in Europe’s largest banking group a way to buy and sell digital assets without opening an account at a crypto exchange. The service, branded “Krypto – powered by Deka”, launched at five of the network’s 339 individual savings banks, with more expected to follow month by month.

Frankfurter Sparkasse, Taunus Sparkasse, Sparkasse Karlsruhe, Sparkasse Rottal-Inn and Niederrheinische Sparkasse RheinLippe are the first institutions to switch the feature on. Customers at those banks can trade Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), XRP, Solana (SOL) and Polygon (POL) from the investment section of the existing Sparkasse app….