For digital asset platforms and fintechs expanding into cryptocurrencies, finding a digital asset bank is often a challenge: you may have the product and customers in place, but still struggle to access the banking infrastructure needed to move between fiat and digital assets reliably. 

This is because many traditional banks are still getting comfortable with digital asset business models. Some choose not to support them. Others may agree to onboard you, but only for narrow use cases such as holding deposits. Meanwhile, you still need to figure out payment execution, customer wallets, and on/off ramps elsewhere. 

When it takes multiple partners to make your digital assets work, it can create a fragile setup: 

• More providers to manage, with the accompanying operational overhead  
• Extra dependencies in the payment chain, which can slow the customer experience and create delays if something goes wrong  
• Changing risk appetites from different providers can leave you constantly reworking your systems and creating a sub-optimal customer experience 

That’s why choosing the right digital asset banking requires a bit of research. In this article, we’ll cover: 

• What types of assets do digital asset banks support?  
• What to look for in a digital asset banking partner 
• Why partner with ClearBank as your digital asset banking provider 
• How ClearBank helps safely store and move GBP for over 3 million Coinbase customers 

ClearBank is a UK- and EU-authorised B2B bank for regulated financial institutions, fintechs, and digital asset platforms, supporting stablecoin payments in Europe and API-first fiat banking infrastructure in the UK and Europe. To learn more, reach out to us. 

A digital asset bank is a regulated banking provider that supports digital asset-related services.  

But not every digital asset bank supports every asset type or use case. Some focus on custody solutions and trading, while others provide the regulated banking infrastructure that helps you connect fiat rails with digital asset use cases. 

This is why it’s important to be clear on what you actually need from a banking partner. If you need crypto custody or trading, you’ll assess providers differently than if you need fiat rails, stablecoin minting and redemption, named customer wallets, or embedded bank accounts inside your platform. 

Here are the main types of digital assets a bank might support:

While banks are beginning to explore digital assets, their consistency and level of service vary. Even banks that offer digital asset services may not fully understand your business model or not offer you their full suite of services.

When you find a bank that works with digital assets, here’s how to evaluate its fit: 

We’ve seen it happen often: you find a banking partner that’s open to working with you, only for them to later change their stance on certain types of digital assets. We’ve even had companies come to us because they were offboarded with short notice due to internal policy changes.

This can create serious operational uncertainty and reputational risk, especially if your platform has built its customer experience around that banking relationship.

As such, look for:

• A bank with direct experience working with digital asset platforms that publicly states digital assets are part of its business offering 
• Clear policies and communication about which use cases it will and won’t support 
• A transparent onboarding and review process 
• Clear expectations around compliance, controls, and ongoing monitoring

Some banks may be willing to hold funds for a digital asset business but won’t support the rest of the infrastructure your platform needs. For example, you might want fiat on/off ramps or customer wallets.  

Virtual accounts can also be important for digital asset platforms with larger customer bases. Instead of a separate real account for every customer, virtual accounts let you assign unique account details or wallet identifiers to each customer, while funds sit under one or a few real accounts. This makes it faster to open customer wallets, easier to track balances and transactions, and simpler to reconcile deposits and withdrawals at scale. 

You may also want the option to offer bank-grade account products inside your own platform as your customer needs evolve. This is where embedded banking can help with FSCS-protected, interest-bearing accounts, giving customers a trusted place to hold fiat after selling digital assets.

Digital asset markets don’t sleep. They don’t have cut-off times or close after business hours. Customers expect to fund accounts, withdraw funds, and see balances update quickly, 24/7.  

However, legacy banking infrastructure follows different timelines. Payments submitted after a certain time may have to wait until the next business day, transactions are processed in batches, and teams have to complete manual steps before deposits, withdrawals, or balance updates are confirmed.  

That can mean headaches for both your team and your end customer, who want real-time transactions and related notifications.  

Your ideal digital asset banking provider should ideally have: 

• API-first infrastructure that lets you quickly trigger payments, create wallets, retrieve balances, and receive automatic updates directly from your own systems 
• Real-time or near real-time payment capabilities via straight-through processing capabilities 
• Webhooks or notifications to enable faster payment status updates 
• High uptime and resilience, including redundancy or failover systems that help keep services available if one component has an issue

When you can’t find a bank to work with right away, you might decide to start with a PSP or similar intermediary. 

But this can add more dependencies in the payment chain, which may mean higher costs, less control over the payment experience, more operational risk if a provider changes its terms, and more complexity when something goes wrong.  

Check if the digital asset banking partner has: 

• Direct access to current and future payment schemes your company may be using, such as SEPA Instant, SEPA Credit Transfer in Europe, and Faster Payments in the UK 
• Support for the currencies and regions you operate in

Digital asset use cases depend heavily on the regulatory market you operate in. Your provider needs to understand the relevant frameworks, but they also need the permissions, partners, and infrastructure to support the full flow in practice.

Take stablecoins as an example: the banking partner’s role is often to connect traditional fiat rails with blockchain-based value transfer. If a client wants to convert fiat into stablecoins, move value on-chain, and redeem it back into fiat, they need more than access to the stablecoin itself. They need the fiat accounts, payment rails, regulatory permissions, and issuer relationships that enable the full flow to operate in a compliant manner. 

In this case, you would ideally look for: 

• A bank that understands the relevant regulatory framework, especially in Europe, under the MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets) Regulation 
• A clear explanation of which stablecoin-related services it can support 
• Partnerships with regulated stablecoin issuers, where needed, to support access to stablecoins such as EURC or USDC 
• Integrated fiat and stablecoin infrastructure – rather than a fragmented setup across multiple providers – to support minting and redemption as part of a regulated fiat-to-stablecoin flow 

ClearBank is a bank built for game changers. With over £18 billion in client deposits, we’re trusted by fintechs and regulated financial institutions to deliver secure, scalable banking.

We also support digital asset platforms with regulated, API-first banking infrastructure across the UK and Europe, including fiat rails, account infrastructure, customer wallets, and, in the UK, embedded banking. We offer Digital Asset Rails to European customers, including stablecoin minting and redemption services via our partnership with Circle. 

100% of sterling client funds are held securely at the Bank of England, while euro client funds are held at De Nederlandsche Bank and the European Central Bank. This means your funds are available 24/7, year-round. 

Here’s why companies offering digital assets like BCB Group, ByBit EU and Coinbase work with us:

Many digital asset platforms struggle to access banking services because traditional banks often don’t understand the sector or have the right risk frameworks in place. 

ClearBank has worked with digital asset companies since 2019, giving us a deeper understanding of your operational, regulatory, and customer experience needs. 

We’re also actively growing our digital asset infrastructure: ClearBank Europe was the first Dutch credit institution to be authorised by the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets to operate as a Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP). 

Our digital asset policies and risk appetite are transparent and consistent, helping you understand what we can and can’t support from the outset. With clearer risk alignment, you can spend less time educating your bank on your business model and more time building products for your customers.

As a digital asset platform, you might still rely on traditional payment infrastructure for the fiat leg of the customer journey. The issue with legacy banking is that it often involves cut-off times, batch processing, manual workflows, and delayed payment confirmations. That, in turn, often leads to slow deposits and withdrawals or leaves your customers unsure where their funds are. 

But customers want to deposit funds, withdraw fiat, and move between cash and digital assets quickly. That’s why we’ve designed ClearBank as a cloud-native bank with an API built for developers. Our documentation is clear, and we provide access to a realistic sandbox environment so you can try your use cases without risk. 

ClearBank’s virtual account structures can support millions of customer wallets without adding unnecessary operational complexity. Each customer can have a named virtual account or wallet linked to one or a smaller number of underlying real accounts, helping you scale while simplifying reconciliation. 

We’re also a direct participant in Faster Payments, SEPA Credit Transfer, SEPA Instant, Bacs, and CHAPS. Our direct participation gives you oversight into how fiat funds move, with less complexity and fewer intermediaries.  

As your transaction volumes grow, API-led access to payment rails and wallet infrastructure can support a smoother customer experience without rebuilding your banking setup. 

In Europe, ClearBank’s CASP status and partnership with Circle enable us to deliver Digital Asset Rails. This supports eligible clients in converting between a fiat currency, euros, and stablecoins within a regulated banking environment. 

By bringing together fiat rails and digital asset infrastructure with our trusted, regulated banking infrastructure, ClearBank can help you avoid a fragmented setup across separate banking, payments, and stablecoin providers. The combination allows clients – initially in the EU – to deliver instant, reliable fiat outcomes on banking rails, without being bound by traditional settlement windows, or legacy processes. 

In the UK, ClearBank supports fiat on- and off-ramping for digital assets platforms while the regulatory framework for stablecoins is being established.

Fiat on/off ramps and customer wallets can help customers move money in and out of your platform. But as your product matures, you may want to give customers a more secure place to hold fiat inside your ecosystem, especially during market dips.

In the UK, this is where ClearBank’s Embedded Banking solution can help. Through ClearBank’s banking licence, you can offer interest-bearing savings accounts where eligible deposits are FSCS-protected up to £120,000.

For digital asset platforms, this gives your customers a trusted place to hold fiat before, after, or alongside buying and selling digital assets. They can keep cash on-platform, earn interest, and benefit from bank-grade controls, rather than moving their funds elsewhere.

This supports customer retention and asset management by keeping more fiat on your platform.  

Coinbase is a leading regulated digital asset exchange operating in over 100 countries with $516 billion on its platform. It enables investors to buy and sell digital assets, including leading cryptocurrencies. 

Coinbase wanted a new banking partner because it needed:  

• Faster access to GBP deposits and withdrawals for UK customers, including access to Faster Payments without becoming a direct scheme member. 
• A banking partner that understood digital assets and could support the fiat side of the customer journey. 
• Infrastructure that could automate reconciliation as Coinbase scaled. 
• A platform that could support millions of GBP customer wallets through virtual accounts. 

ClearBank has powered Coinbase’s GBP on/off ramps and wallets since 2019, with access to FPS and CHAPS through a single API. 

Our virtual account structure helps Coinbase support more than 3 million GBP customer wallets with a smaller number of real accounts. This helps Coinbase automate reconciliation, support safeguarding of customer funds, and improve the customer experience for real-time fiat deposits.

“ClearBank powers all of our UK virtual accounts and makes the on-ramp between fiat and crypto seamless for our customers, so that we can stay focused on building exciting new products and features.” - Keith Grose, UK CEO of Coinbase 

Most recently, Coinbase implemented ClearBank’s Embedded Banking solution to offer fiat savings accounts. This helps it retain customers’ GBP funds within the Coinbase platform through a savings account, earn interest, and benefit from FSCS protection on eligible deposits, rather than moving funds to an external bank. 

Read the full case study: How ClearBank facilitates the safe storage and movement of GBP funds for Coinbase customers. 

ClearBank is a good fit for platforms that need more than deposit-holding. We’re built for the next generation of banking, while keeping the safeguards of our UK and Dutch banking licences. 

ClearBank was built to be real-time by default. By combining our institutional strengths with the technical capabilities of stablecoins, we see the opportunity to bridge the gap between traditional finance and programmable money 

We communicate risks and use cases clearly, so you don’t have to second-guess how we’ll work together in the future. Whether you need a fiat banking foundation today or want the option to expand into embedded banking and digital assets infrastructure later, ClearBank can support every stage of growth. 

Want to learn more about working with ClearBank as your digital asset bank? Get in touch.