Santander Brazil to launch crypto trading feature

According to Santander Brazil CEO Mario Leao on Thursday, Spanish banking giant Santander (SAN) intends to start offering cryptocurrency trading to its clients in Brazil in the upcoming months.

Folha de S says the bank intends to introduce cryptocurrency-related services and may share more information about the project in the business’ upcoming results announcement in mid-October. Newspaper in Paulo 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.

In Latin America this year, Santander has already made strides with cryptocurrency. In conjunction with Agrotoken, an Argentine agricultural commodities tokenization platform, it introduced loans for farmers in Argentina in March that were secured by tokenized commodities.

Recently, a number of non-crypto financial firms in Brazil declared or launched their operations in the cryptocurrency space. Brazilian fintech PicPay stated in July that it would be launching a cryptocurrency exchange and a stablecoin related to Brazilian real estate in 2022. Brazilian customers have been able to purchase, sell, and keep cryptocurrencies since December thanks to Mercado Libre, the largest e-commerce business in Latin America in terms of market value.