Bank Leumi Taps Galaxy for Bitcoin Trading Push in Israel
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- Bank Leumi will let roughly 2.5 million retail customers buy, hold, and sell Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana inside its Pepper/Leumi Trade app, targeting an early 2027 launch.
- Galaxy Digital supplies both halves of the stack — execution via GalaxyOne Institutional and custody via its air-gapped GK8 wallet (acquired after Celsius's collapse) — and holds a New York DFS BitLicense plus a May 2026 money-transmission license.
- Leumi's 2022 Paxos deal for BTC and ETH trading through Pepper Invest never launched because Bank of Israel regulatory sign-off never came — the same gate this new service still must clear.
- The regulatory landscape shifted in mid-2026: the Bank of Israel removed auto-delays on crypto-linked deposits and barred blanket refusals of funds from licensed providers; the Capital Market Authority set capital rules (2 million NIS non-custody, 2.5 million NIS with custody, plus mandatory customer-asset segregation); and an August 1 circular opened trading to the top 50 coins by market cap above a $500 million threshold.
- Galaxy Israel CEO Lior Lamesh said "the banks that move first will define the era that follows," framing Leumi as the first Israeli bank to bring digital assets directly to retail customers.
Why it matters: Leumi's 2.5 million-customer retail base would give Galaxy a major bank-channel distribution in Israel, and unlike the 2022 Paxos attempt, this push enters a market where mid-2026 rule changes specifically cleared the path for licensed banks to offer crypto. The single remaining variable is still the Bank of Israel's sign-off — the same gate that killed the first try.
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