According to PANews, Germany's largest state bank Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) plans to cooperate with Bitpanda Exchange to start providing cryptocurrency custody services. According to a statement issued by the two companies on Monday, LBBW and Bitpanda will provide crypto asset custody services to institutional and corporate clients from the second half of 2024.

"There is a growing demand for digital assets from our corporate clients," said Jürgen Harengel, managing director of corporate banking at LBBW. German banks and asset managers are increasingly active in the crypto asset space, offering custody services and developing their own products for the asset class in response to EU regulations that will take effect later this year. Deutsche Bank is developing its own custody service for digital assets, and its DWS unit is part of a consortium that is developing a euro-denominated stablecoin. LBBW, whose owners include some German savings banks, the state of Baden-Württemberg and the city of Stuttgart, has assets of about 333 billion euros ($355 billion).