Bison Bank becomes Portugal's first bank to operate as CASP
Bison Bank has become the first Portuguese bank to operate directly as a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) under the European MiCA regulation by merging its fully owned Bison Digital Assets subsidiary, which was already approved by the Bank of Portugal. In 2025 BDA served approximately 275 clients and handled €165 million in traded volume, and the new CASP structure offers institutional custody, exchange and advisory services and supports EUB and USB e-money tokens and future real-world asset tokenization. The bank reported €5 million recurring net profit in 2025 and a 38.5% CET1 ratio, underpinning capacity to expand services.
First Portuguese bank to hold a MiCA CASP license
Context
In 2022 BDA became the first bank-owned VASP in Portugal. Now Bison Bank merged BDA and got a CASP licence under MiCA. This could lead to more regulated crypto services for institutional clients.
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