Bybit adds an Austrian e-money entity to its European platform
Bybit says its new FMA licence will support regulated payment services alongside a separate MiCAR crypto-asset authorization, but the products and launch dates are still to come.
Bybit is adding a second regulated Austrian entity to the European platform it has been building under MiCA. In a release issued Aug. 5, the exchange said Bybit Payments GmbH received an electronic-money institution licence from Austria's Financial Market Authority, or FMA. The payments company will handle regulated electronic-money and payment services through Bybit.eu, while a separate company, Bybit EU GmbH, remains responsible for crypto-asset services.
The separation matters because the two permissions cover different activities. The FMA's public record confirms that Bybit EU GmbH received a MiCAR authorization in May 2025 for services including custody, exchanging crypto-assets, placing crypto-assets and transfers on behalf of clients. Bybit's new announcement says the payment entity will operate within its own authorization rather than using the crypto-asset company as a catch-all license.
What the licence could enable
Bybit lists possible future features including person-to-person payments, electronic-money accounts, strong customer authentication, open-banking connections, merchant payments and card initiatives. Those are examples of the regulatory perimeter the licence can support, not a list of products already available to customers. The company says it will disclose precise launch dates and distribution details later.
That distinction is important for users and competitors reading the announcement as a product update. The licence gives Bybit Payments a supervised route to build payment relationships and reduce dependence on third-party payment infrastructure. It does not establish adoption, customer balances, transaction volume or the commercial terms of any future service.
A broader European operating model
Bybit's structure resembles the regulatory architecture now forming around European crypto platforms: crypto-asset services and payment services sit in related but distinct legal entities, with separate responsibilities and controls. The platform can make those services look continuous to a customer, but the permissions behind them remain activity-specific. That increases the importance of explaining which company holds customer funds, which entity provides a service and where a complaint or failure would be handled.
The next evidence is operational. Bybit will need to publish the countries and customer segments covered, the payment products that actually launch, and how the two Austrian entities hand off compliance and safeguarding duties.
