Banca Sella has successfully completed its formal notification process with the Bank of Italy under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, becoming the first Italian bank authorized to provide crypto-asset services. The financial institution confirmed its plans to launch a dedicated platform for the custody, transfer, and receipt of digital assets by 2026, targeting specific customer categories. The official communication, released from Biella on May 27, 2026, marks the beginning of a regulated operational phase tied to its official Italian notification.
Operating as the Group’s main commercial bank, Banca Sella S.p.A. maintains a physical infrastructure comprising nearly 300 branches and over 2,400 employees across the national territory. Established initially in Biella in 1886, the corporation has built a long tradition in private banking, payment systems, and e-commerce. The direct entry into the cryptocurrency market represents an alignment of its commercial offering with European Union directives. The strategy aims to provide a supervised environment for holding and technologically managing value, separating itself from unregulated trading operations.
The development of these services responds to the new continental legal framework, where financial providers must adapt their operational structures to the standards demanded by supervisory authorities. The transition from experimental programs to licensed services requires companies to implement strict security systems and capital controls, a shift that heavily influences the banking dominance over open innovation models across the region.
Andrea Tessera, Managing Director of Digital Banking at Banca Sella, detailed that the integration of cryptographic services is part of a systemic evolution of the payment infrastructure. The executive specified that the tokenization of deposits and financial instruments facilitates the establishment of instant, interoperable, and programmable transfer networks. To support this deployment, the bank internally structured a specialized team focused on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and digital assets, responsible for managing the technical guidelines and compliance protocols for the new custody platforms.
Beyond individual wallet management, Banca Sella operates as a founding member of Qivalis, a consortium composed of 37 European banks that maintains the objective of issuing a euro-denominated stablecoin before the end of the year. The institution also conducts technical monitoring of institutional initiatives promoted by the Eurosystem, specifically through the Pontes and Appia projects, which investigate the feasibility of liquidity tokenization within traditional financial environments.
Technological exposure history and regulatory guidelines
The permit obtained under the MiCA regulation does not constitute the corporation’s first contact with cryptographic protocols. The entity participated in a 2022 pilot program based on DLT infrastructures, promoted by the Bank of Italy’s Fintech Milano Hub. This early experimentation phase provided the operational data necessary to configure the current risk structure, allowing the firm to advance toward the commercialization of regulated services at both retail and institutional levels.
The European regulation establishes a strict compliance schedule, altering the operational conditions for both native and traditional players who must obtain urgent operating licenses to continue their activities. The law requires periodic audits, the technical separation of client assets from the corporate balance sheet, and the publication of governance policies, requirements that banking corporations must integrate into their software architectures and risk control mechanisms.
In parallel, Banca Sella’s exposure to the retail segment of digital assets has remained active through Hype, its specialized digital banking brand. In March 2020, Hype established a technical integration with the firm Conio, enabling its adult users to buy, sell, send, and receive Bitcoin directly from its mobile application. Founded in 2015 with investments from entities like Poste Italiane, Conio deployed a multi-signature wallet system that secures access through an architecture requiring two out of three private keys. This collaboration allowed the banking group to record customer demand for decentralized instruments, consolidating a wallet service that maintains its operability in the local market.
Financial reports reflect the scale of this user base. By 2024, Banca Sella reported the management of approximately 1.3 million active customers, while the Hype digital platform administered accounts for nearly 1.7 million individuals. The final implementation of the new custody services approved by the Bank of Italy will depend on the interface updates projected for 2026 and the publication of the technical access terms for the selected customer profiles, operational information that remains to be confirmed.
This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute financial advice.
