FRANKFURT, December 13th. (Reuters) Germany’s savings banks, a conservative bastion with more than 1 trillion euros for thrifty Germans, are considering offering a wallet for trading cryptocurrencies, a banking group announced on Monday.
The project represents a potential turnaround for banks whose customers continue to use cash and avoid risky investments or large loans.
With the savings and investments of around 50 million customers, they form the largest financial group in Germany.
The interest in crypto assets is huge, said a spokesman for the German Savings Banks and Giro Association with a view to the pilot project. No decision has yet been made, the savings bank group was sceptical at the time.
The German magazine Capital reported the news first.
The move takes place against the background of high inflation and penalties for banks and savers due to negative interest rates and sparked a heated debate in Germany about the printing of central bank money.
It has led Germans to invest more in property and elsewhere to avoid what some call dubbed the “expropriation” of their property.
Last month, Helmut Schleweis, President of the German Savings Banks Association, described the combination of low interest rates and rising prices as a “toxic mix” and said it had become more difficult to stop the erosion of wealth.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of around $1.2 trillion, has risen sharply, fueled in part by inflation fears, and its limited supply is seen as protection.
Bitcoin also has dozens of smaller rivals, all vying for a share of the larger $2 trillion digital currency market.
Among the most important “Altcoins” like all cryptocurrencies besides Bitcoin some are known, such as Ethereum, which want to be the backbone of a future financial system. Others, like Dogecoin, are rarely used for payments.
Retail gamblers, despite their volatile track record, pour money into them hoping to make a quick profit.
