Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) is taking its cryptocurrency strategy beyond Austria, partnering with Bitpanda to develop a group-wide framework for digital-asset services across its Central and Eastern European (CEE) network. Announced on September 24, 2026, the deal brings crypto closer to the banking apps and financial relationships already used by millions of the group's customers. RBI disclosed the collaboration in an official press release.

Bitpanda Enterprise to Supply the Infrastructure

Under the partnership, banks in RBI's network gain access to Bitpanda Enterprise, the business-to-business infrastructure arm of the Vienna-based European crypto platform. Rather than requiring each bank in the network to create its own technology stack for digital assets, the framework instead offers a shared infrastructure layer that network banks can adopt.

Bitpanda Enterprise says its institutional technology addresses digital-asset investment infrastructure, liquidity, custody, payments, stablecoins, and tokenization, giving network banks a ready-made foundation for crypto offerings.

How and when services are introduced will be a decision for individual RBI banks, depending on local market conditions and regulatory requirements.

The group serves 18.8 million customers, and RBI maintains subsidiary banks in 11 CEE markets. According to the companies, the roughly 18 million customers represent the potential regional size of the digital-asset framework rather than the number of customers currently receiving crypto services.

Austrian Pilot Becomes the Expansion Model

The group-wide push follows a 2024 integration that made Raiffeisen Landesbank Niederösterreich-Wien (RLB NÖ-Wien), an Austrian Raiffeisen bank, one of the first traditional EU banks to offer customers access to crypto through an established banking framework, powered by Bitpanda. The new arrangement changes the scale of that model: rather than a single bank integration, RBI and Bitpanda are creating an integration framework that the wider banking ecosystem across the region could follow. For bank customers in the region, the model points to digital assets appearing as an option within existing banking apps and relationships, rather than only through accounts at dedicated crypto platforms.

RBI CEO Michael Höllerer said the bank is witnessing increasing demand for crypto assets in its markets and is catering to that demand through its collaboration with Bitpanda.

The partnership also reflects a broader business-to-business trend in the crypto industry, in which banks leverage specialized infrastructure providers instead of building out every capability themselves. According to research by Bitpanda, licensing and ease of integration are the key factors financial institutions weigh when selecting crypto partners.

Rollout Will Depend on Local Crypto Rules

The partnership does not mean the same crypto products will be available in all 11 markets at the same time. Part of the variation is regulatory: banks in the group's EU member-state markets fall under the bloc's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), which has applied to crypto-asset service providers since December 2024, while markets outside the EU operate under their own national frameworks. RBI and Bitpanda said they will implement the framework in a gradual manner, customized to each jurisdiction. That includes the actual products and services to be offered in a given market, as well as the fees customers will pay — whether prepaid or recurring — set for each individual market launch rather than through a single offering applied regionwide. The companies have not announced a timeline for individual market launches, so announcements from RBI's subsidiary banks will indicate how the rollout progresses market by market.

For Bitpanda, the deal adds another major banking distribution channel in Europe. For RBI, it provides a common technological foundation for expanding digital-asset services across the group, while leaving individual markets to determine how those services are introduced.

Source: Crypto Ninjas