DekaBank, which provides securities services for Germany's Sparkassen savings banks, launched crypto trading on Oct. 19. Adult customers of participating banks can buy Bitcoin through the Sparkasse app after opening a Deka crypto account. The service, named "Krypto - powered by Deka," also supports Ethereum, Solana, XRP and Polygon's POL. Customers must hold a current account with a participating Sparkasse and open the crypto account in the app's investing section.
Deka's participating-bank directory listed Frankfurter Sparkasse, Sparkasse Rottal-Inn, Niederrheinische Sparkasse RheinLippe, Taunus Sparkasse and Sparkasse Karlsruhe when checked on Oct. 20. Each Sparkasse independently chooses whether to provide the service. Deka says the service will expand in stages during the coming months. The launch follows plans reported in June 2025. Deka's announcement and directory disclose neither crypto-account openings nor trading-customer numbers, so actual usage remains unclear.
Deka's retail pricing sheet specifies a €0.99 fee for each purchase or sale. Orders have no minimum size, while each transaction has a €250,000 maximum. DekaBank also adds a spread to a market reference price when quoting trades. The pricing sheet does not quantify the spread, so the transaction fee does not represent the entire trading cost. Deka's product page warns that technical problems and maintenance may prevent trading at customers' preferred times or prices.
Deka's product page says Deka centrally holds customer crypto and controls the private keys through a shared, or omnibus, wallet. Deka permits outbound delivery only to addresses held at specified crypto-asset service providers, or CASPs. The destination restrictions prevent customers from transferring crypto directly to their own self-custody wallets. Deka lists custody and authorized outbound delivery as services without charges.
Deka's October whitelist includes Crypto Finance (Deutschland) GmbH, Tangany GmbH, Börse Stuttgart Digital Custody GmbH and Bullish Europe GmbH. A separate table specifies a minimum Bitcoin delivery of 0.0001 BTC. Deka warns that customers could lose their entire investment. Deka also says statutory bank-deposit protection does not cover crypto holdings.