UniCredit is exploring infrastructure for crypto trading, custody and tokenized investments as the Italian bank weighs how to bring digital assets closer to its existing financial services.
The talks are still at an early stage, but the areas under consideration suggest something more substantial than simply adding Bitcoin to a banking app. According to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg on Friday, UniCredit is looking for a technology partner to help build the machinery behind these services.
The bank is reportedly evaluating crypto custody and brokerage capabilities, along with access to tokenized investment products. Stablecoin-based fixed-income securities are also part of the discussions.
That mix is notable because it puts crypto trading alongside products designed to make blockchain infrastructure feel less like a separate financial universe and more like another layer of conventional banking.
Where crypto trading meets traditional banking
For UniCredit, crypto trading would be only one piece of a broader digital-asset setup. The reported search for an infrastructure provider points to the less glamorous—but critical—side of the business: the systems that allow a bank to hold, transact and offer exposure to assets built on blockchain networks.
UniCredit has not publicly identified a technology provider, and Cointelegraph said it had contacted the bank for comment. The discussions, according to Bloomberg’s sources, remain preliminary.
The move arrives as other major financial institutions test similar territory. U.S. Bank, the fifth-largest commercial bank in the United States, completed a live cross-border payment using its proprietary USBDC stablecoin on Wednesday, adding another example of a major bank experimenting with blockchain-based financial infrastructure.
Standard Chartered has also expanded its digital asset services. On September 3, the London-headquartered bank launched spot Bitcoin and Ether trading for institutional clients in the United Arab Emirates, following the introduction of digital asset custody services there in September 2024.
And in Israel, Leumi, the country’s largest bank, partnered with Galaxy Digital in August to offer customers access to Bitcoin, Ether and Solana trading through its investment platform. That service is expected to launch in early 2027.
The pattern is becoming easier to spot: banks are not simply watching crypto trading from the sidelines. They are exploring custody, payments, tokenized products and the infrastructure needed to package digital assets inside familiar financial channels.
For UniCredit, the question now is how much of that infrastructure it should build itself—and how much it should source from a specialist technology provider.