Between 21 July and 17 September 2026, ESMA's register of authorised crypto-asset service providers added 41 new entries. Twenty-eight of them are German Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken. Each is authorised for exactly one MiCA service, in exactly one country, and each row is a local bank switching on the cooperative group's retail crypto trading. The register is, in effect, publishing the rollout schedule of a product that Germany's cooperative banks have been promising since January — and nobody had counted it.
What the register shows
Every one of the 28 rows has the same shape:
| Register | ESMA interim MiCA register (CASPs) |
| Competent authority | Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) |
| Home member state | DE |
| Services | (e) execution of orders for crypto-assets on behalf of clients — and nothing else |
| Host member states | DE |
The entries since 21 July, in authorisation order:
| Authorised | Bank |
|---|---|
| 2026-07-21 | VR-Bank Augsburg-Ostallgäu eG |
| 2026-07-21 | VR Bank Schleswig-Holstein Mitte eG |
| 2026-07-24 | Volksbank Raiffeisenbank Oberbayern Südost eG |
| 2026-07-27 | Volksbank eG – Die Gestalterbank |
| 2026-07-29 | VR-Bank Landau-Mengkofen eG |
| 2026-08-03 | VBU Volksbank im Unterland eG |
| 2026-08-04 | VR-Bank Erding eG |
| 2026-08-06 | Volksbank Beilstein-Ilsfeld-Abstatt eG |
| 2026-08-07 | Raiffeisenbank Aidlingen eG |
| 2026-08-13 | Raiffeisenbank Schwaben Mitte eG |
| 2026-08-14 | Volksbank Euskirchen eG |
| 2026-08-18 | VR-Bank Mittelfranken Mitte eG |
| 2026-08-18 | Ihre Volksbank eG Neckar Odenwald Main Tauber |
| 2026-08-20 | VR Bank Ried-Überwald eG |
| 2026-08-20 | Volksbank Backnang eG |
| 2026-08-21 | Frankfurter Volksbank Rhein/Main eG |
| 2026-08-26 | VR Bank Ihre Heimatbank eG |
| 2026-08-27 | Raiffeisenbank Isar-Loisachtal eG |
| 2026-08-27 | Volksbank Alb eG |
| 2026-08-31 | Volksbank Raiffeisenbank Dachau eG |
| 2026-09-02 | Volksbank Sauerland eG |
| 2026-09-07 | Volksbank Zollernalb eG |
| 2026-09-08 | VR Bank München Land eG |
| 2026-09-15 | Raiffeisenbank Goldener Steig-Dreisessel eG |
| 2026-09-17 | Vereinigte VR Bank eG |
| 2026-09-24 | Vereinigte Volksbank Raiffeisenbank eG, Reinheim |
| 2026-09-29 | Volksbank Olpe-Wenden-Drolshagen eG |
| 2026-10-06 | Volksbank Baumberge eG |
Source: ESMA's consolidated CASP register, snapshot of 17 September 2026; browse the German entries with each bank's LEI and register row. Note the last three dates are in the future — ESMA publishes on notification, and BaFin's authorisations carry deferred effective dates (the same thing we saw with Deutsche Bank's entry).
The numbers
- 39 cooperative banks (Volksbanken, Raiffeisenbanken, VR-Banken) are now on the register. The first two — Volksbank Raiffeisenbank Bayern Mitte and Volksbank Mittlerer Schwarzwald — were authorised on 5 November 2025; nine more followed by mid-July 2026; then 28 in the eight weeks since.
- Germany has 94 CASPs on the register, the most of any member state. Cooperative banks are 41% of them.
- The whole EU/EEA register holds 352 CASPs. One in nine is a German cooperative bank.
- Zero Sparkassen. The savings-bank group's central institution, DekaBank, is still building its equivalent; on the register, the cooperative group is alone in the retail-bank segment.
Why every bank needs its own line
The product is DZ Bank's "meinKrypto": crypto trading inside the VR Banking app, with custody at Boerse Stuttgart Digital Custody and execution on the EUWAX venue. DZ BANK AG itself has held MiCA authorisation for custody (a), execution (e) and transfers (j) since 23 December 2025 — the full service stack. But the customer relationship belongs to the local bank, and under MiCA the entity that takes a client's order is providing service (e) — execution of orders for crypto-assets on behalf of clients — and must be authorised for it in its own name. So each of Germany's roughly 700 independent cooperative banks that decides to switch the product on has to obtain, and be listed with, exactly that one service. That is the pattern on the register: (e) only, DE only, one row per bank.
Which makes the register a rollout tracker. Industry reporting says more than a third of cooperative banks plan to introduce meinKrypto in the coming months; at the current pace — roughly three to four banks a week — the register will show it bank by bank.
What it means
For merchants and payments teams: nothing about payment acceptance changes; these are retail-investment authorisations, not payment services. But if you use the register to assess counterparties, note that a Volksbank on the CASP list is not a crypto custodian or exchange — it holds (e) only. Custody sits with Boerse Stuttgart Digital, execution with EUWAX. The scope column is the fact; the headline "Volksbank gets crypto licence" is the summary.
For anyone tracking European crypto regulation: the MiCA register's growth in Germany is now driven less by fintechs and more by incumbent retail banks adding one service each. Counting CASPs as a proxy for "crypto companies" overstates the market — 39 of Germany's 94 are the same product wearing different local names.
For the crypto-native providers with broader MiCA scope, see Bitpanda and Bitstamp in the directory, and the full register view.
Why the register beats the press release
The cooperative group announced the product in January. The register has been recording who actually turned it on, bank by bank, ever since — and it will keep doing so after the last article about meinKrypto has been written. License Watch diffs ESMA's MiCA register weekly alongside the FCA, EBA, FINTRAC, FinCEN and ASIC registers, and publishes every new authorisation, cancellation and scope change with a citation link to the regulator's own record. No claim without a citation.
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PaymentProviders.io is an informational service. Registry data belongs to the issuing regulators; status labels reflect the regulator's own wording. This article is not financial or legal advice, and PaymentProviders.io is not affiliated with DZ Bank or any cooperative bank.