French banking heavyweight BPCE is making ready to introduce crypto buying and selling to tens of millions of its retail clients, making it one of many first main conventional European banks to supply digital belongings.
Based on a report from The Huge Whale, the group will permit customers to purchase and promote Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL) and USDC (USDC) immediately inside its Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Épargne cell apps beginning Monday.
The preliminary rollout will cowl shoppers of 4 regional banks, together with Banque Populaire Île-de-France and Caisse d’Épargne Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, reaching roughly 2 million clients. BPCE plans to increase the service step by step throughout its remaining 25 regional entities by 2026, finally making crypto buying and selling out there to its full 12-million-strong retail base.
A financial institution insider reportedly advised The Huge Whale that the phased strategy is meant to “monitor how the service performs at launch” earlier than scaling.
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BPCE rolls out paid in-app crypto accounts
Crypto purchases and gross sales will likely be dealt with by a devoted digital asset account throughout the banking apps, managed by Hexarq, BPCE’s crypto subsidiary, per the report. The account carries a 2.99 euros ($3.48) month-to-month payment and a 1.5% fee per commerce, with a minimal of $1.16. Customers will have the ability to entry the service without having exterior exchanges or third-party wallets.
BPCE’s transfer comes as competitors intensifies throughout Europe between conventional banks and crypto-friendly fintechs corresponding to Revolut, Deblock, Bitstack and Commerce Republic, all of that are providing entry to digital belongings.
A number of European establishments have additionally taken comparable steps. BBVA permits Spanish clients to purchase, promote and maintain Bitcoin and Ether immediately inside its app, backed by in-house custody. Santander’s digital arm Openbank provides buying and selling and custody for 5 cryptocurrencies, whereas Raiffeisen Financial institution’s Vienna-based unit partnered with Bitpanda to deliver crypto providers to its retail shoppers.
Cointelegraph reached out to BPCE for remark, however had not acquired a response by publication.
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France to tax crypto as “unproductive wealth”
Final month, French lawmakers narrowly authorised an modification that will lengthen the nation’s wealth tax to cowl “unproductive belongings,” together with sure actual property, luxurious objects, and digital belongings corresponding to crypto.
Underneath the modification, people holding greater than $2.3 million in qualifying “unproductive wealth” would face a brand new flat 1% tax, a shift from in the present day’s progressive actual property wealth tax. The expanded taxable base consists of digital belongings. The proposal should nonetheless move the Senate as a part of the 2026 price range course of earlier than changing into regulation.
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