Santander Bank has announced its plans to offer its Brazilian customers crypto trading services.
According to a Folha De S.Paulo newspaper report, further details on the crypto related offering are likely to be revealed in the coming months around mid-October.
While the crypto markets are currently in crypto winter/bear market, building continues at pace and the 2022 CEO of Santander, Mario Leao has said foreseeable and continual market demand for digital assets has driven the move:
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
This is not the first non-crypto Brazilian financial company to recently announce its plans to make inroads with crypto. In July, Brazilian fintech PicPay declare it would launch a stablecoin and crypto exchange as part of a drive to increase access to digital assets. During last year December, Latin America's largest e-commerce and payments system company Mercado Libre also began allowing customers to buy sell and hold cryptocurrency.
These all add up to further mainstreaming of crypto / blockchain and further signs of adoption of the technology.