Santander, which is a Spanish multinational banking giant, is going to make strides in the cryptocurrency industry. The CEO of Santander Brazil, Mario Leao revealed on Thursday that the bank is planning to launch crypto trading services for Brazilian clients in the coming months.
First reported by local newspaper, Folha de S. Paulo, the bank is expected to provide details about its crypto plans in the company’s next earnings release which will come out in mid-October.
The Brazilian Crypto Space
Santander’s move occurred after several other mainstream financial institutions in Brazil had entered the crypto industry with their services. Nubank, which is Brazil’s largest digital lender, recently revealed that the number of its crypto trading users crossed one million only a month after launching the services.
Additionally, PicPay, another Brazilian fintech firm, is going to launch a crypto exchange and a Brazilian real-tied stablecoin later this year, while the e-commerce platform, Mercado Libre is already facilitating buying, selling and holding cryptocurrencies.
However, Santander Brazil’s boss clarified that the bank’s move is not influenced by its competitors. Instead, there is high demand among its customer base for crypto-related services.
“We recognize that it is a market that is here to stay, and it is not necessarily a reaction to competitors positioning themselves. It is simply a vision that our client has demand for this type of asset, so we have to find the most correct and most educational way to do it,” said the CEO.
Meanwhile, the Spanish lender looks to be bullish on its crypto plans in Latin America. Earlier, it partnered with Argentina-based Agrotken to launch credit facilities for farmers in Argentina, which are collateralized with tokenized commodities.
