Germany Extends MiCA Lead With 6 New Bank Licenses, Totaling 79 Crypto Providers

Germany has further cemented its position as the European Union's top destination for crypto asset service provider (CASP) authorizations under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), adding six cooperative banks in the latest register update. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) refreshed its MiCA register on Friday, bringing the total number of authorized CASPs across the EU to 331. Germany now accounts for 79 of those providers, well ahead of France with 35 and the Netherlands with 29.

The six newly authorized institutions are all German cooperative banks: Raiffeisenbank Aidlingen, Ihre Volksbank, VR-Bank Mittelfranken Mitte, Volksbank Euskirchen, VR Bank Ried-Überwald, and Volksbank Backnang. Germany's total has grown rapidly from 57 in late June, when the country already held the top spot for MiCA authorizations. Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) previously attributed the surge to the country's large financial sector, the volume of credit institutions eligible to offer crypto services, and a pre-existing national licensing regime that enabled a smoother transition to MiCA's unified framework.

ESMA's other datasets remained unchanged in this update. The asset-referenced token (ART) register is still empty, the electronic money token (EMT) register holds 43 entries, and the non-compliant entity list remains at 167 entities. The growing list of authorized providers highlights the uneven pace of MiCA adoption across member states, with Germany continuing to pull away from the rest of the bloc. The trend comes as regulators elsewhere, including in Austria, have begun issuing fines under the new framework, signaling that MiCA enforcement is moving from licensing to active oversight.