Germany extended its lead in European Union crypto licensing under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) after six additional cooperative banks were added to the latest register update published by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).
The ESMA update on Friday increased the total number of authorized crypto asset service providers (CASPs) to 331, up from 325 in the previous register update dated Aug. 12. The six new entrants were all German cooperative banks: Raiffeisenbank Aidlingen, Ihre Volksbank, VR-Bank Mittelfranken Mitte, Volksbank Euskirchen, VR Bank Ried-Überwald and Volksbank Backnang.
Germany now accounts for 79 licensed CASPs, surpassing France with 35 and the Netherlands with 29. The country’s total has risen from 57 in late June, when it already held the top position in ESMA’s MiCA register. Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) attributed the high number of authorizations to the country’s large financial sector and the number of credit institutions eligible to offer crypto services.
BaFin also noted that Germany’s pre-existing national licensing regime allowed some CASPs to transition to full MiCA compliance through simplified authorization procedures during the regulation’s phased implementation. ESMA’s asset-referenced token (ART) and electronic money token (EMT) datasets remained unchanged, with the ART register still empty, the EMT register holding 43 entries and the non-compliant entity list stable at 167.
