| What You Need to Know |
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| 1Interview recorded at Money 20/20 Europe 2026, 2 to 4 June, at the Amsterdam RAI. |
| 2Myles Harrison is Chief Product Officer at AMINA Bank, the crypto-native arm of the Swiss-regulated AMINA Group. |
| 3His thesis, compliance is not a brake on crypto but the thing that lets innovation move, because a lack of legal clarity is what held the industry back. |
| 4AMINA became the first crypto banking group to secure a MiCA license, granted through its Austrian subsidiary in October 2025, on top of licenses in Switzerland, Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi. |
| 5Harrison's standout claim, the real product is security and trust, in an industry scarred by scandals and bad actors, with selective onboarding that protects clients. |
We have spent Money 20/20 Europe talking to the people who move this market, from traditional finance to DeFi, Web3 and AI. AMINA earned a seat early. The name carries weight. AMINA Group runs a Swiss crypto-native bank and now holds one of the first MiCA licences on the continent. Harrison runs product across that group, so he sees where regulation meets the customer every day.
The four words that decide a crypto bank
I put four words to Harrison that clients repeat at every booth this year. Compliance, security, reliability, speed. He did not flinch. Meeting all four, he said, starts with a mindset shift away from old banking hours.
“We don’t operate in the traditional nine-to-five. Our clients expect us to be up, available, accessible, twenty-four seven, three sixty-five. Crypto never sleeps.”
So AMINA built its infrastructure and operating model around that demand. The bank then hides the hard parts. Safe storage and custody carry real complexity, and Harrison said the team abstracts as much of it as possible behind easy applications. The client gets simple. The bank carries the weight.
Why AMINA Bank treats compliance as a superpower
Compliance reads like a cost to most founders. Harrison flips it. For AMINA Bank, rules are the runway, not the wall.
“A lack of clarity holds back innovation in an industry. We have been suffering from that for some time. So we welcome the legislation here in Europe, and more broadly across the world.”
The logic is clean. When the law is vague, serious capital stays out and products stall. When the law is clear, banks can build and clients can commit. Harrison framed the bank as a partner to the wider system, not a wrecking ball. AMINA is there to support the system, he said, so clients benefit from these services rather than gamble on them.
See also: WAML on why the wrong wallet freezes your crypto.
First crypto banking group with a MiCA licence
The proof of the thesis sits on paper. In October 2025, AMINA’s Austrian subsidiary won a CASP licence from Austria’s regulator under MiCA. That made AMINA the first crypto banking group to clear the bar. The licence does not stop at the border.
AMINA has notified regulators in thirteen further European countries and can passport into more than thirty markets across the bloc. It sits alongside the group’s existing licences in Switzerland, Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi. Few crypto firms can show that spread, and the spread is the point. One regime opens many doors.
Reading MiCA in practice, ART and EMT
Winning a licence is one task. Running a global business under it is another. Harrison was candid that the work crosses borders and rule sets at once.
“Like the industry, we have been over the last 18 months to two years really learning how MiCA is applied in practice, what the different categories of tokens are.”
That detail matters. MiCA splits tokens into types. The asset-referenced token is backed by a basket of assets. The electronic money token is pegged to one currency. Each type carries its duties. Harrison said the team must translate those categories into live products, market by market, well past the licence headline.
Security and trust as the product
I asked Harrison for the one thing AMINA does better than anyone. He could have listed features. He went somewhere harder to copy.
“It would be the security and the trust that we have with our clients when we are holding their funds, particularly within an industry that has seen, unfortunately, many scandals, many bad actors.”
Trust is the rare asset in crypto, and it compounds slowly. Harrison agreed with a point most firms dodge. AMINA is selective about whom it onboards, and that screening protects the clients already inside. The bank says no so its customers stay safe. In a market where the next collapse is always one headline away, that posture is the moat.
See also: Fingerprint on why stopping fraud is about intent.
On a journey to wider adoption
Harrison has worked this show for years, so his read on the room carries signal. This edition, he said, had the most crypto and stablecoin presence he has seen at Money 20/20. The bank is growing year-on-year. The same regulated push recently made AMINA the first regulated bank on 21X, Europe’s licensed DLT trading venue. He credited the teams across AMINA Group for the climb.
He left the conversation on a line worth keeping. AMINA is on a journey for wider adoption, walking beside the industry rather than ahead of it. Compliance, in his telling, is what makes the walk possible. He expects one kind of firm to be standing when the next cycle turns, those that treat the rulebook as a feature, not a chore.
This interview was recorded live at Money 20/20 Europe 2026 at the Amsterdam RAI. For more from the floor, watch the full Cryptofocus series, including our interviews with wallet-risk platform WAML and device-intelligence firm Fingerprint.
