Bybit Payments GmbH, the Austrian payments subsidiary of Bybit EU, received an Electronic Money Institution license on August 4, 2026, according to Austria’s Financial Market Authority (FMA).
Key Takeaways
- Austria’s FMA granted Bybit Payments GmbH an EMI license on 04.08.2026, covering the issuance of electronic money.
- The license also authorizes incoming payment business, outgoing payment business, payment business, and issuing and acquiring under Austria’s payment services law.
- The EMI license stands apart from Bybit EU GmbH’s MiCAR crypto-asset service provider authorization, granted by an administrative decision dated 28.05.2025.
- Bybit Payments GmbH’s registered office is at Donau-City-Straße 7, 1220 Vienna, per the FMA licence grant notice.
- Bybit now holds two separate FMA licenses.
What Happened?
Austria’s FMA granted Bybit Payments GmbH, Commercial Register number FN 636179h, a licence on 04.08.2026 as an electronic money institution, acting under Article 3 paragraph 1 in conjunction with Article 4 paragraph 4 of Austria’s E-Money Act 2010 (E-Geldgesetz 2010). An EMI license is the EU category letting a firm legally issue electronic money and move regulated payments across the bloc.
The grant authorizes Bybit Payments to issue electronic money under Article 1 paragraph 2 of the E-Money Act 2010. The same license also authorizes Bybit Payments to provide incoming payment business, outgoing payment business, payment business, and issuing and acquiring services under Article 1 paragraph 2 of the Payment Services Act 2018 (ZaDiG 2018), Austria’s version of the EU payment services rulebook.
The EU route Bybit just cleared works through a dedicated payments statute, not the securities-versus-commodities patchwork that still governs crypto oversight in the United States.
JUST IN: Bybit Payments GmbH secures electronic money institution licence from Austria’s FMA for regulated payment services. pic.twitter.com/V5gGimCczy
— MSB Intel (@MSBIntel) August 4, 2026
Two Licenses, One Vienna Platform
The EMI license is legally distinct from Bybit EU GmbH’s existing crypto authorization. Bybit EU GmbH, Commercial Register number FN 636180i, was granted authorization as a crypto-asset service provider under Article 63 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (MiCAR) by an administrative decision dated 28.05.2025. That authorization covers custody and administration of crypto assets, exchange of crypto assets for funds, exchange of crypto assets for other crypto assets, placing of crypto assets, and transfer services for crypto assets – five distinct service categories.
MiCAR is the EU’s crypto-asset regulation. CASP status lets a firm passport crypto services across the bloc from a single home-state license. The new EMI license does not touch that authorization.
It sits under a separate Austrian law and a separate legal entity. Neobanks such as Revolut’s Polygon-linked card rollout have grown on exactly this kind of standalone payments license.
Implications for Bybit’s European Strategy
Splitting crypto custody and fiat payments into two separately licensed entities is a deliberate compliance architecture, not an accident of corporate structuring. Each entity answers to its own capital and audit requirements. That narrows the single point of failure a combined license would create if either business line ran into regulatory trouble.
The sequencing also signals how Bybit reads the EU’s posture toward crypto platforms. Regulators increasingly expect the money-movement layer beneath a crypto exchange to carry the same licensed status as the crypto layer itself. A platform that wants to hold customer balances, settle fiat, and custody crypto in the EU now effectively needs both licenses to do it cleanly.
CoinLaw’s Takeaway
Bybit’s Vienna operation now holds an electronic money institution license and a MiCAR crypto asset service provider authorization, two licenses issued under different Austrian and EU legal tracks but running behind one customer-facing platform. That combination mirrors the separation-of-concerns model traditional payment processors have used for years, now applied to a crypto exchange’s European entity structure.
The extended read is that this looks like a template, not a one-off filing. Other large exchanges chasing EU market share will likely need a comparable two-license structure, one for payments and one for crypto-asset services, rather than assuming a single MiCAR authorization covers the full stack of services a modern exchange wants to offer.
