Share this article

Santander Brazil to Launch Crypto Trading Feature in Coming Months, CEO Says

The financial institution will join fintech companies entering the crypto segment, such as Nubank, Mercado Libre and PicPay.

Updated May 11, 2023, 4:24 p.m. Published Jul 28, 2022, 11:22 p.m.
(Cristina Arias/Getty Images)
(Cristina Arias/Getty Images)

This article is adapted from CoinDesk Brasil, a partnership between CoinDesk and InfoMoney, one of Brazil's leading financial news publications. Follow CoinDesk Brasil on Twitter.

Spanish banking multinational Santander (SAN) plans to offer crypto trading to its clients in Brazil in the coming months, Santander Brazil CEO Mario Leao said on Thursday.

STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters

The bank plans to launch crypto-related services and could provide further news about the initiative in the company's next earnings release, in mid-October, Folha de S. Paulo newspaper reported.

“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,” Leao said.

Santander has already made inroads with crypto in Latin America this year. In March, it launched loans in Argentina for farmers collateralized with tokenized commodities in partnership with Agrotoken, an Argentina-based agricultural commodities tokenization platform.

Read more: Why Brazil Is the Big Latin American Bet for Global Crypto Exchanges

Several non-crypto financial companies have announced or started operating crypto ventures in Brazil recently. In July, the Brazilian fintech PicPay announced its plans to launch a crypto exchange and a Brazilian real-tied stablecoin in 2022. In December, Mercado Libre, Latin America’s largest e-commerce company by market value, started allowing users in Brazil to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies.

On Tuesday, Nubank, the largest Brazilian digital bank by market value, announced it reached one million users on its crypto trading platform just one month after launching in June.

This article was translated by Andrés Engler and edited by CoinDesk. The original Portuguese can be found here.

More For You

More For You

Recapping Consensus Hong Kong

Consensus Hong Kong 2026 exhibition floor packed with visitors.

Crypto's role in payments for AI, regulatory changes and the digital asset market dominated conversations on the ground.

What to know:

  • Speakers at CoinDesk's Consensus Hong Kong conference said crypto and stablecoins are likely to become the default payment tools for autonomous AI agents in an emerging "machine economy."
  • Market participants warned that bitcoin, which has already dropped nearly $30,000 in a month, may fall further, with $50,000 seen as the level to watch.
  • Hong Kong regulators are pressing ahead with crypto rules even as others wait to see how U.S. legislation develops.