Private customers aged 18 and over with securities-enabled accounts will trade from November 26 through wallets the bank holds on Fireblocks infrastructure. Bank Leumi announced a comparable service with Galaxy in August and does not expect to launch until early 2027.
Israel Discount Bank said on Wednesday that its customers will be able to buy, hold and sell bitcoin and ether inside the bank's mobile app from November 26, with the bank holding the wallets itself. Globes, which reported the announcement, said the service is open to private customers aged 18 and over whose accounts are already enabled for securities trading, subject to the bank's terms.
Only two assets are included at launch. Customers will not need an account at an external exchange or a separate wallet of their own, because the bank will provide the wallets using infrastructure from Fireblocks, a digital asset custody firm. Proceeds from a sale can be paid straight into the customer's bank account.
Avi Levi, chief executive of the Discount Group, framed the launch as a first. "For the first time in the banking system, Discount Bank will facilitate the trading of digital currencies," he said, describing the service as an initial phase in building the bank's digital currency infrastructure. The bank said crypto activity carries a high level of risk.
The claim of a first is the bank's own. Bank Leumi announced a crypto trading plan with Paxos through its Pepper Invest brand in March 2022 and never launched it. Leumi announced a second attempt in August, a collaboration with Galaxy Digital covering bitcoin, ether and Solana through its Leumi Trade app, with crypto.news reporting that GalaxyOne Institutional would handle trading and Galaxy's custody platform, formerly GK8, would hold the assets. That service is not expected until early 2027. On the published timetables, Discount would go first.
The service also addresses a problem Israeli crypto holders have had with their banks. Globes notes that Israeli investors have had difficulty moving crypto proceeds into their bank accounts, because banks require source-of-funds verification to satisfy anti-money-laundering rules. A purchase and a sale that both happen inside the bank sit in an account the bank already monitors, which is a different position from a transfer arriving from an outside platform.
Tax is handled the same way. Discount says gains and losses on crypto trades can be offset against other investments held in the same portfolio, with tax deducted at source. Globes contrasts that with external platforms, where the investor settles with the Israel Tax Authority directly.
Pricing is only partly disclosed. The bank is waiving account management fees for six months and has described trading commissions as low, but the announcement as reported by Globes gives no rates. No minimum investment was stated either.
Neither report names a regulator or states that the service required approval. Israel does license crypto activity: the Capital Market, Insurance and Savings Authority authorized Bits of Gold, a local brokerage, to issue BILS, a shekel-pegged token the authority approved in April after a two-year pilot on Solana that also used Fireblocks for custody. Whether a bank selling bitcoin to retail customers sits under the same authority, the Bank of Israel, or the securities regime that already covers these accounts is not addressed in either account of the announcement.
Banks elsewhere have been moving into digital assets from the institutional end rather than the retail one. Deutsche Bank named bitcoin, ether and three stablecoins as the assets its custody service would hold for European corporate and institutional clients, and Standard Chartered agreed to buy Zodia Custody outright in October. Galaxy, Leumi's partner, has applied for a national trust bank charter in the United States. Discount's service points the other way: two assets, a consumer app, and wallets the bank holds for retail customers.
That design also shapes what a customer ends up holding. The bank provides the wallets, so the bank, not the customer, is the party holding them, which is what removes the need for an outside wallet in the first place. Neither report says whether coins bought this way can be withdrawn to an address the customer controls.
November 26 is the bank's own timetable, and the announcement names no approval the service is waiting on.
