Bank Leumi, Israel's largest bank, is preparing to let customers buy, hold, and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana — three of the largest cryptocurrencies by market value — directly within its Leumi Trade app, using Galaxy Digital's trading and custody infrastructure. The two companies announced the partnership Thursday, with the service slated to reach customers in early 2027 through the bank's digital investment arm, Pepper.

It will be Bank Leumi's second attempt at cryptocurrency trading, following a failed run in 2022 — and the new plan must still clear the same Bank of Israel approval process that killed the first one.

"Customers of Leumi and PEPPER, the bank's mobile digital banking arm, will be able to buy, hold and sell selected digital assets, including Bitcoin, Ether and Solana, within the Leumi Trade capital markets application," the official press release states. It adds: "Trading will take place in a dedicated, secured section of the app. The service is expected to become available to customers in early 2027."

A second attempt

This is not Leumi's first swing at crypto. In March 2022, Pepper Invest said it would enable BTC and ETH trading through crypto infrastructure and tokenization company Paxos, billing itself as the first Israeli bank to do so (Reuters). That service never launched because the necessary regulatory sign-off never came — the plan stalled at the Bank of Israel. In both attempts the model was the same: Leumi rented its crypto rails from an outside specialist — Paxos then, Galaxy now — rather than building the trading and custody plumbing itself.

Why the second attempt looks different

Up until this summer, Israeli banks automatically delayed crypto-linked deposits and could refuse fiat from crypto sources outright, while licensed firms could only trade a short list of coins with no clear custody-capital rules. In practice, that meant a customer who sold crypto elsewhere could see the proceeds held up — or turned away — the moment they landed in an Israeli bank account.

That changed in mid-2026. The Bank of Israel removed the deposit delays and barred blanket refusals of funds from licensed providers. The Capital Market Authority set wallet-security and capital standards — 2 million New Israeli Shekels for non-custody firms and 2.5 million New Israeli Shekels for firms with custody, plus mandatory customer-asset segregation. And an August 1 circular opened trading to the top 50 coins by market capitalization above a $500 million threshold. Bitcoin, Ether and Solana — the three assets named at launch — all sit within that permitted universe. Together, these measures created a regulated, lower-friction on-ramp for banks like Leumi to bring crypto directly to retail customers.

Galaxy also gives Leumi a regulated counterparty: the firm holds a New York DFS BitLicense — the state's crypto business license — along with a money-transmission license obtained in May 2026.

Galaxy supplies both halves of the technical stack. Execution flows through GalaxyOne Institutional, its platform built for banks and asset managers, while custody runs on GK8, an air-gapped wallet maker (one that never touches the internet) that Galaxy acquired after Celsius's collapse.

Customers will trade from the same app where they already manage stocks and bonds. Bank Leumi serves roughly 2.5 million retail customers, and the partnership would make it the first bank in Israel to bring digital assets to its customers — until now, direct crypto trading for Israelis has sat outside the banking system.

"The future of finance will run on open, programmable rails, and we believe the banks that move first will define the era that follows," said Lior Lamesh, CEO of Galaxy Israel. "Leumi is the first bank in Israel to bring digital assets to its customers, and it chose Galaxy, to make it possible."

Leumi and Galaxy expect the service inside Leumi Trade in early 2027, pending Bank of Israel sign-off — the same gate that stopped the 2022 plan. Whether that approval now arrives under the new rules will be the clearest test of how far Israel's regulatory climate has actually shifted.