Germany Hits 79 CASPs, 6 Cooperative Banks Added to EU Crypto Service Provider Register

Odaily News The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) today updated its register of crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), bringing the total number of authorized crypto-asset service providers in the EU to 331. All six newly added institutions are German cooperative banks, namely Raiffeisenbank Aidlingen, Ihre Volksbank, VR-Bank Mittelfranken Mitte, Volksbank Euskirchen, VR Bank Ried-Überwald, and Volksbank Backnang. Germany now has 79 authorized crypto-asset service providers, while France and the Netherlands have 35 and 29, respectively. Since leading the EU with 57 CASPs at the end of June, the number of authorizations in Germany has continued to rise. Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) previously stated that the country's leading authorization count is linked to its large financial sector and the high number of credit institutions qualified to offer crypto services, with the existing national licensing regime also playing a role during the transitional period, allowing some CASPs to obtain authorization through a simplified process. In this update, the register of asset-referenced tokens remains empty, the register of e-money tokens remains at 43 entries, and the list of non-compliant entities remains at 167 entries.