Can I Buy Bitcoin with ING?
ING customers can buy Bitcoin through an exchange, although none of its retail banks in the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany sells or stores crypto. You transfer euros using SEPA, the EU-wide bank transfer system, then trade on the exchange. Since 1 July, that platform must hold a MiCA authorisation, which you can check on ESMA's MiCA register.
The bank publishes no crypto-specific cap in these countries. Ordinary transfer limits apply instead, starting at €2,000 a day for Dutch and German accounts. ING Belgium allows €12,500 per 24 hours online. During our first Dutch test, the app rejected a €2,500 payment to Kraken. We raised the limit, but the change took four hours to activate.
ING does offer listed crypto products. Its Dutch brokerage added five crypto ETNs on 22 January, and ING Germany expanded its range on 2 February. These bond-like exchange-traded notes track a coin's price without allowing you to withdraw coins to a wallet, stake them or use them on a blockchain. We compare both options below.
How to Buy Crypto with ING
The cheapest way to buy coins you can withdraw is to send a SEPA Instant payment from ING to Kraken. Neither charges for the transfer, and instant payments settle within seconds across the euro area.
Steps to buy crypto with ING:
- Open and verify a Kraken account: Register on Kraken and complete identity checks (KYC) using a passport or national ID card. Euro deposits must come from an account in your own verified name.
- Copy the SEPA deposit details: Open Deposit in Kraken, choose EUR and select SEPA Instant. Copy the IBAN and beneficiary name, along with the 16-character reference starting with AA. Without that reference, the transfer cannot be matched to you.
- Raise your ING limit in advance: In the Dutch app, open Service, then Digitale daglimiet. German customers should tap their account's gear icon and select Überweisungslimit ändern. Either increase takes four hours to activate.
- Send the transfer and clear Verification of Payee: Add Kraken as a payee, pasting the beneficiary name exactly as provided. Verification of Payee compares it with the IBAN. Our German test returned a partial match until we pasted the full name.
- Buy with a limit order on Kraken Pro: Once the euros arrive, open Kraken Pro and place a limit order on BTC/EUR. Resting limit orders pay the 0.25% maker rate. The one-tap Buy screen is more expensive because it adds a fee and a spread, a markup built into the price.
A missing AA reference or mismatched name explains almost every deposit that fails to appear. Kraken support can usually trace the payment using a screenshot of your ING transaction.
ING Crypto ETNs vs Owning Assets on Crypto Exchanges
With ING's ETNs, you can track crypto prices through a brokerage account without owning coins. The issuer keeps the underlying assets with a custodian. ING lists these notes in three countries.
- Netherlands: After passing a compulsory knowledge test, brokerage customers can buy WisdomTree Physical Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and XRP, plus BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETP, according to ING's launch announcement.
- Germany: The Direkt-Depot brokerage account offers products from 21Shares, Bitwise, VanEck, WisdomTree and iShares. VanEck's partnership terms waive order fees on purchases of €1,000 or more across its eleven featured ETNs. Smaller orders cost €3.90, while savings plans have no execution fees.
- Spain: ING introduced Bitcoin and Ethereum ETNs through its Bróker Naranja brokerage in November 2025, with more listed products promised.
An ETN cannot leave your brokerage account. You cannot transfer it to a hardware wallet or use it for staking rewards and coin swaps. Trading is limited to stock exchange hours, while Bitcoin trades around the clock. Issuer insolvency could also cause losses even if the underlying coin's price holds. ING Germany lists this risk alongside extreme volatility in its warnings.
Tax treatment offers little distinction between the two. According to ING Germany, its crypto ETNs follow the same one-year rule as coins. Dutch investors report both in box 3, the tax band for savings and investments. The US spot funds on our Bitcoin ETF tracker are unavailable to EU retail investors because they lack the key information document required by EU rules.
ETNs suit a modest crypto allocation held for years alongside ING funds and shares. To own Bitcoin itself or buy beyond the handful of listed assets, send euros to Kraken by SEPA.
Fees, Tax and Transfer Limits for ING Customers
ING charges nothing for the transfer itself. The bank sets your transfer limits, while Kraken determines your trading costs.
ING costs and limits
- SEPA Instant: Free for consumers. EU rules now prohibit banks from charging more for instant transfers than standard ones. ING Germany preselects instant transfers in its app and online banking.
- Netherlands: The digitale daglimiet starts at €2,000. You can raise it to €50,000 through the app or Mijn ING, with a fixed four-hour wait for every increase. Branches can lift it to €1,000,000. iDEAL payments count toward the same daily total. For comparison, ABN AMRO allows an app limit of €250,000 with the same four-hour delay.
- Germany: Current accounts and Extra-Konto savings accounts each start with an Überweisungslimit of €2,000, set per day or per transfer. Raising a current account limit takes four hours, and contacting ING cannot speed this up. Transfers from an Extra-Konto to your linked current account skip the wait.
- Belgium: Transfers to other people through the app or online banking are capped at €12,500 per 24 hours, down from €25,000 before December 2024. A branch can raise the limit to €1,000,000 a day.
- Verification of Payee: Every euro transfer has checked the payee name against the IBAN since 9 October 2025 under the EPC's verification scheme. You can proceed after a mismatch warning, but you then bear the risk of a misdirected payment.
- Bundesbank reporting: German residents must report outgoing transfers above €50,000 to accounts outside Germany. A single payment above that amount triggers a filing if Kraken's deposit IBAN begins with a country code other than DE.
- Deposit guarantee: Each EU ING bank's national guarantee scheme protects euro balances up to €100,000 per person. That protection does not cover coins on an exchange.
Kraken fees
- SEPA and SEPA Instant deposits: Free, with a €1 minimum.
- Kraken Pro spot trading: Entry-tier fees are 0.25% maker and 0.40% taker, declining as 30-day trading volume rises, according to Kraken's fee schedule. Maker orders wait on the order book; taker orders execute immediately against existing orders. Our guide to maker and taker fees explains the distinction.
- Instant Buy: Charges a higher fee plus a spread. We use it only for small tests.
- Crypto withdrawals: Network fee only, varying by asset and blockchain.
Tax on crypto in ING's main markets
- Netherlands: Crypto, including stablecoins, falls under "other assets" in box 3 and is valued at 1 January. A fixed assumed return is taxed at 36%. The counter-evidence scheme lets you claim a lower actual return.
- Germany: Selling coins within a year incurs tax at your personal income rate. Holdings sold after a year are tax-free, and total annual private-sale profits below €1,000 remain untaxed. The BMF's March 2025 guidance tightened recordkeeping requirements.
- Belgium: Gains realised since 1 January attract a 10% capital gains tax, with an annual exemption for the first €10,000. Trading deemed speculative is taxed at 33% instead.
- Reporting: MiCA exchanges have collected user and transaction data since 1 January under DAC8, the EU's crypto tax-reporting directive. Tax authorities begin exchanging that information next year.
A €5,000 Bitcoin purchase costs €12.50 in Kraken Pro maker fees, with nothing charged by ING. The only delay is the four-hour wait if you raise your transfer limit.
Best Exchanges for ING Customers
The four platforms below all hold MiCA authorisation and accept free SEPA transfers from ING. Kraken offers free SEPA Instant under an Irish licence, while Bitvavo is licensed by the Dutch AFM. Bybit has the largest coin selection, and Coinbase offers a simple app.
ING Cryptocurrency Policy
ING offers customers crypto exposure through regulated securities but holds no coins for them. At its Dutch ETN launch, the bank described crypto as volatile and speculative, presenting listed notes as a controlled way to invest. ING Germany's risk notes also state that crypto has no intrinsic value.
Dutch rival bunq chose a different approach, adding Kraken-powered crypto trading to its app in April 2025. ING's group-level involvement includes being a founding bank behind Qivalis. The Amsterdam company is seeking Dutch central bank authorisation to issue a MiCA-compliant stablecoin pegged one-to-one to the euro, targeting a launch in the second half of this year.
Since 1 July, ING customers in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium have been restricted to platforms supervised under MiCA by authorities such as the AFM, BaFin or the Central Bank of Ireland. MiCA applied from 30 December 2024. The Netherlands allowed existing providers just six months of grace, ending on 30 June 2025, ahead of the EU-wide window closing. Our guides to the best crypto exchanges in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium track qualifying firms.
Poland still lacks a national crypto supervisor after President Karol Nawrocki vetoed the implementing bill for a third time in June. The legal footing for firms serving ING Bank Śląski customers therefore remains unsettled.
MiCA does not apply in Australia. ING publishes no crypto cap there, although exchanges have reported declined payments since 2024. Our best crypto exchanges in Australia guide focuses on locally registered platforms.
About ING
ING Groep N.V. was formed in 1991 through the merger of Nationale-Nederlanden and NMB Postbank Groep. The Amsterdam-headquartered group employs more than 60,000 people, serving retail and wholesale customers in over 40 countries. It is supervised directly by the European Central Bank, while DNB and the AFM oversee its Dutch business.
Separate national banks serve retail customers, so products and limits vary by country. In the Netherlands, ING Bank N.V. operates the Dutch app, Mijn ING and the Zelf op de Beurs brokerage. ING Belgium provides the ING Banking app and Self Invest, while ING-DiBa AG serves more than nine million German customers and runs Direkt-Depot.
The European business also includes Poland's ING Bank Śląski and the Spanish arm, which operates Bróker Naranja. Outside Europe, the group includes ING Bank (Australia) Limited.
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Bottom Line
ING blocked none of our test payments, publishes no crypto cap and charges nothing for instant euro transfers. Customers face few obstacles when funding a regulated exchange, although the €2,000 default limit takes four hours to raise. Increase it the day before you buy.
For outright coin ownership, we recommend Kraken. Its Central Bank of Ireland licence covers ING customers from Amsterdam to Madrid. Copy the beneficiary name and AA reference exactly, then use limit orders on Kraken Pro. Keep your exchange records too, because DAC8 now passes them directly to your tax authority.
The listed ETNs in the Netherlands and Germany suit customers who only want price exposure within an existing ING portfolio. No wallet is needed, but the notes can never leave that account.
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