Germany's savings banks long held back from crypto over volatility concerns. As of Monday, the first Sparkassen let customers buy, sell and hold Bitcoin in the Sparkasse app, with Ethereum, XRP, Solana and Polygon also on the initial list.

Only a handful of banks are live at launch, and there is no single nationwide start date: each Sparkasse decides when to switch on. The DSGV, the savings banks' association, plans to add 30 to 40 banks per month and connect a large share of interested Sparkassen in the first half of 2027.

DekaBank, the group's securities provider, runs the service and holds custody of the assets, while Börse Stuttgart Digital supplies crypto liquidity. The offer is execution-only: no advice and no broad marketing, with explicit warnings about price swings and the risk of total loss.

The rollout brings crypto into the Sparkassen app after neobanks N26, Trade Republic and Revolut, and more recently the Volksbanken, already offered it.