The CASP licence
Under MiCA, any entity offering crypto services to EU residents must hold a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) authorisation from a national regulator. The authorisation is EU-passported: a Lithuanian CASP can serve customers in any member state.
In practice, most neobanks in our table hold their own CASP authorisation — Revolut, Vivid and Lunar are directly MiCA-licensed. A few use a different route: N26 offers crypto through its partner Bitpanda's CASP, and Trade Republic offers it under its German banking and brokerage licence rather than a standalone CASP. The licence imposes disclosures (whitepapers for token issuers, risk statements for service providers), consumer-protection rules, and capital requirements.
Custody matters
CASP rules require segregation of customer crypto assets from the firm's own assets, with specific safekeeping standards. Most EU neobanks operate omnibus custody — they pool customer crypto in a single wallet and keep the individual accounting off-chain.
This is fine for day-to-day, but it is not self-custody. If you want the keys, you need to withdraw to an external wallet. Only 1 banks in our list actually let you do this.
What MiCA doesn't do
MiCA does not create deposit-style insurance for crypto. If your neobank's crypto business fails, you are a creditor of a bankrupt entity; the recovery depends on how well the custody was segregated. Don't confuse CASP-regulated with DGS-protected — they are unrelated.