Standalone exchanges, meet Itaú, Nubank and Banco do Brasil
Itaú, Nubank and Banco do Brasil now broker retail crypto without holding it on their books, months after Brazil’s VASP rules took effect in February 2026.
Three of Brazil’s largest banks now operate retail crypto brokerage services with token menus that rival some standalone exchanges, according to a report published 7 September 2026, and none of the three holds crypto on its own balance sheet.
Itaú, the country’s largest private bank, began 2025 offering 15 tokens to retail clients, including Bitcoin and ether. Banco do Brasil, the state-controlled lender, followed with direct investment access to Bitcoin and ether in January 2026. Nubank, the digital bank, expanded its crypto platform to 28 assets, adding four new tokens in May 2026 alone, and more than 7 million users trade crypto through its app, according to the report.
That scale is the competitive problem for standalone exchanges. A single banking app reaching seven million Brazilian crypto traders is a distribution channel most dedicated platforms cannot match, and the banks’ menus now cover the depth of assets retail buyers typically want. The reported figures have not been confirmed by the banks themselves.
The build-out follows the Brazilian Central Bank’s move into formal crypto oversight. The BCB passed resolutions at the end of 2025 establishing a regulatory framework for virtual asset service providers, and the rules went live in February 2026. The framework covers authorization requirements, capital adequacy standards, mandatory asset segregation and proof of reserves.
The banks’ model differs from the exchange model in one structural respect: exposure stays off their books. Each bank classifies crypto as a high-risk investment and requires risk disclosures before clients can trade, so revenue comes from brokering access rather than from holding client assets. How custody is actually structured under the no-holdings policy is not explained in the report.
The regulatory regime appears to be doing the work regulators intend. Authorization, segregation and proof-of-reserves requirements gave licensed banks a compliant path into retail crypto, and the banks used it within months of the effective date. For standalone exchanges in one of the world’s largest crypto markets, the contest is no longer only with each other; it is with institutions that already own the retail banking relationship.
Nubank’s Brazilian expansion also sits alongside a separate, conditional US national banking charter granted by the OCC, which the company has tied to crypto-custody ambitions in the United States.
Featured image: editorial illustration in house style, generated for this article.
