Conio S.r.l., the Milan-based digital asset company backed by Poste Italiane and Banca Generali, received its Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) licence from Italy's securities regulator Consob on June 17, 2026. The company is subject to management and coordination by its US parent entity, Conio Inc. Institutional shareholders also include Banca Finint and Banca Sella.

The authorisation covers custody, transfer, and placement of digital assets, as well as white-label infrastructure for banks and financial institutions. The approval arrives thirteen months after Conio filed its application in May 2025, and just under two weeks before the EU's hard deadline for unlicensed operators to exit the market.

What the Licence Covers

The approved scope goes beyond basic custody. Conio is also authorised to offer tokenisation and Real World Asset (RWA) management services, meaning Italian regulators have formally signed off on structuring real-world financial assets as on-chain tokens. Conio has also participated in the Bank of Italy innovation centre's Euro Token project, a connection that adds direct practical weight to the dual-regulator approval process. The licence was processed under Italy's dual-supervisor model: Consob holds primary authorisation authority, but Banca d'Italia must provide a mandatory opinion before approval is granted. This governance split reflects the way crypto regulation straddles both capital markets and banking supervision, and offers a point of comparison for regulators in Nigeria, Kenya, and India, each of which is navigating a similar structural tension in its own distinct legal framework, though the specific institutional arrangements differ significantly across those jurisdictions.

Conio CEO and founder Christian Miccoli said, in a statement translated from Italian, that the approval was "a particularly significant result" for the company.

Miccoli founded Conio in 2015 after stints running ING Direct Italy and Che Banca!, and built the company around a multi-signature Bitcoin wallet design using a 2-of-3 key structure where the user, Conio, and a third-party backup each hold one key. The company holds four US patents related to custody and multi-signature asset management.

Banking Roots, Not a Standalone Exchange

Conio's business model distinguishes it from most retail crypto platforms. Its primary product is a white-label layer that lets traditional banks offer crypto services to their own customers under their own brand. Poste Italiane, Italy's state postal and financial group with roughly 35 million customers, was an early backer with a €3 million seed investment in 2015. Banca Generali invested in December 2020, followed by Banca Finint and Banca Sella.

In December 2023, Conio integrated Coinbase Prime to expand institutional liquidity, giving partner banks access to around 50 tokens. General Manager Orlando Merone said at that time that Italian banks were "demanding more in the way of digital assets" and that Conio was targeting coverage of almost 60 percent of the digital asset market by the end of 2024. That target has not been updated publicly, and Verse Press was unable to confirm the current status of token coverage.

The company now serves more than 450,000 retail clients, though it has not disclosed assets under management or revenue figures.

Where Italy Fits in the MiCA Picture

The EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation set a full CASP authorisation requirement from December 30, 2024. Italy gave existing Virtual Asset Service Providers until December 30, 2025 to submit applications, with unlicensed entities required to stop operations by July 1, 2026. As of February 2026, more than 40 CASPs had received full authorisation across the bloc. Germany leads with approximately 18 licences, the Netherlands with 14, and France and Malta with 6 each. Italy has lagged behind, making Conio's approval notable domestically. These figures are drawn from ESMA register data current as of February 2026 and may have been revised since.

The broader MiCA transition has been disruptive. More than 18 percent of European crypto platforms chose to exit EU markets rather than absorb compliance costs estimated above 500,000 euros per year for mid-sized operators. Regulators have already issued fines exceeding 540 million euros, according to ESMA data, though this figure should be confirmed against primary ESMA or national regulator sources before being treated as definitive.

Tether's USDT was delisted by major EU exchanges after failing to achieve MiCAR compliance following the regulation's stablecoin requirements taking effect. Whether USDT has since achieved any partial compliance pathway within the EU remains unclear.

Why This Matters Outside Europe

A MiCAR licence carries passporting rights, meaning Conio can legally offer services across all 27 EU member states from its Italian authorisation. That reach is relevant for diaspora communities across the continent. Sub-Saharan Africa recorded more than 205 billion dollars in on-chain transaction volume between July 2024 and June 2025, a 52 percent year-on-year increase driven largely by stablecoin use for remittances and inflation hedging, according to Chainalysis data cited by Ripple Insights.

Nigerian, Ghanaian, Kenyan, and Senegalese communities in Europe represent active remittance corridors, and a MiCAR-compliant provider can serve those users in ways an unlicensed operator legally cannot.

In South Asia, Conio's bank-embedded model is directly relevant to discussions underway at India's SEBI and RBI, where fintechs and banks including HDFC, ICICI, and Jio Financial are exploring crypto integration under a still-unresolved regulatory framework for digital assets.

The 13-month application-to-approval timeline at Consob gives regulators and applicants elsewhere a concrete benchmark.

With July 1 now less than two weeks away, the window for any EU-facing crypto service to operate without a CASP licence is closing. Conio's approval confirms that the licensing pathway is open, including for complex services such as tokenisation. What remains to be seen is how many other operators across the bloc will meet the deadline, and how aggressively Consob and peer regulators move against those that do not.