South Africa’s retail banking landscape shifted decisively this week as First National Bank opened cryptocurrency trading to its customer base of nearly 9 million people, embedding five digital assets directly into the same share-trading accounts that clients already use for Johannesburg Stock Exchange equities. The service, called FNB Crypto Investing, is powered by Johannesburg-based exchange VALR and represents the broadest distribution of digital assets any South African lender has achieved to date.

The bank, the retail arm of FirstRand and the country’s second-largest banking group by assets, is making Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Solana and Tether’s USDT stablecoin available around the clock, every day of the week. Customers can start…