Raiffeisen-Landesbank Steiermark, Raiffeisen Salzburg, and Raiffeisen Vorarlberg have started offering Bitpanda access via the Mein ELBA-App.
Three regional banks in Austria’s Raiffeisen network have joined the group of Raiffeisen partners offering their customers access to Bitpanda, a digital asset platform. The move follows Bitpanda’s earlier partnership with Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) and extends the collaboration to further regions of the country.
Customers of Raiffeisen-Landesbank Steiermark, Raiffeisen Salzburg, and Raiffeisen Vorarlberg can now use Bitpanda through Mein ELBA-App, connecting from their existing online banking environment to the company’s digital asset offering. The service gives them access to more than 650 crypto assets.
How the access model works
The arrangement separates the roles of the two parties. Trading takes place directly with Bitpanda, while the participating Raiffeisen banks provide access to the Bitpanda Platform through Mein ELBA-App. The banking app, therefore functions as the entry point for customers, with Bitpanda acting as the provider responsible for the crypto trading itself.
Under this division, the regional banks extend crypto access to their customer base without trading taking place on their side, while Bitpanda reaches users through a banking channel they already use.
With Vorarlberg, Salzburg, and Steiermark now live, the partnership has expanded beyond its initial agreement with RBI to cover more regions and more customers across Austria. Each additional institution adds a further distribution route for Bitpanda, bringing the three regional banks into a partner network that followed the RBI agreement.
Bitpanda has stated that it intends to take the rollout further together with the Raiffeisen network. However, no additional participating banks, regions, or timelines have been specified.
Implications for bank-integrated crypto access
The expansion illustrates a model in which access to crypto assets is integrated into an established online banking environment, while a specialised provider handles the trading.
For the regional Raiffeisen banks, the setup allows them to offer customers a route to digital assets through an app they already operate, with the trading relationship sitting with Bitpanda. For Bitpanda, the step-by-step addition of Raiffeisen institutions extends the reach of its platform across Austria, region by region, through the same banking app used by each participating bank. Whether the remaining parts of the network follow, and on what schedule, has yet to be confirmed.
