We received the payment service provider license (PSD2)

We are very excited to announce that we successfully applied and received a payment service provider license. The license was issued by the Austrian financial market authority (FMA) in accordance with European law (PSD2). It is a significant milestone for the Bitpanda group and will allow it to launch exciting features and products in the coming months.

Bitpanda is one of the few European cryptocurrency fintechs to receive such a license and it allows us to offer even more innovative products and services. As a company with around 1 million users and more than 100 team members, we are now able to expand our business model to get closer to our vision of tearing down barriers and connecting the old with the new finance world.

“Our goal is to bridge the gap between the modern and traditional financial world. The payment service provider license will allow us to tear barriers down,’’ says Philipp Bohrn, one of the two managing directors of Bitpanda Payments GmbH. Prior to joining Bitpanda, Philipp Bohrn was the managing director of the Association of Financial Service Providers in Austria’s chamber of commerce for 9 years. Lukas Enzersdorfer-Konrad, former Head of Department Digitalisation and Innovation at Austria’s leading banking group Raiffeisen and second managing director, agrees: “We want to act as the missing link to make digital assets spendable anywhere our users want. With the license, we are a first mover in Europe to offer convenient and innovative features and services.”

The Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) is a directive by the European Union (EU) to regulate payment service providers throughout the EU and the whole European Economic Area (EEA). The goal is that everyone from traditional banks to fintechs like Bitpanda is able to participate in an open European market while bringing new innovations and more efficient processes to their users.

“We are very happy that Bitpanda is one of the few European cryptocurrency fintechs to receive such a license. It’s a big step towards our vision to create an open, innovative investment platform,” says Bitpanda CEO Eric Demuth. Bitpanda’s vision is to provide easy-to-use, convenient access to a vast array of digital assets, and it is currently expanding its trading platform to other asset classes beyond cryptocurrencies.

The payment service provider license positions us as a first mover and allows us to broaden our business model and introduce new, innovative services in the future.