Payward Saldo Bank deal gives Kraken an EU license

Kraken parent Payward has signed a definitive agreement to buy Saldo Finance Oy, the Finnish holding company behind Lithuania-licensed Saldo Bank UAB, giving the crypto group a full EU banking license. The Payward Saldo Bank deal would make it the first crypto company to buy a European bank, according to the Financial Times. The price was not disclosed, and closing is expected in 2027 subject to regulatory approvals.

What happened

In its announcement, Payward said Saldo brings a footprint across four operating markets plus a passport into the Netherlands, live deposit products, lending infrastructure and a banking-as-a-service team. Saldo offers retail term deposits in Lithuania, Finland, Sweden and Germany, and its credit card launched in Finland and is expected in Sweden in 2027.

CoinDesk said Saldo had 163.9 million euros in total assets at the end of 2025, up 22.7% from a year earlier, citing The Banks. Decrypt reported that Saldo received its EU banking license in 2021.

Payward said its banking arm already holds a Federal Reserve limited-purpose master account and an electronic money license from the Central Bank of Ireland, and has originated more than $2 billion in loans. Co-CEO Arjun Sethi said a regulated EU bank lets the firm serve European clients the way a primary financial institution should.

Saldo also brings working products. It offers consumer lending in Lithuania, Finland and Sweden and SME lending in Lithuania and Finland, and it runs embedded lending partnerships in Finland and Germany, where fintech companies use its infrastructure for their own customers, according to Payward.

Why it matters

The Payward Saldo Bank purchase moves Kraken's parent from crypto trading toward full-service banking. Once the deal closes, Payward expects to offer interest on deposits, secured and unsecured SME loans, consumer lending, credit cards and full SEPA payments access, along with infrastructure for fintech partners.

Sethi told the FT that customers want products similar to what they get from another bank. The plan is to bring cash, crypto, tokenized stocks and credit into one system, so customers can borrow against assets without selling them, Decrypt reported.

The deal extends a buying spree. Payward bought derivatives exchange Bitnomial for $550 million in April and Asian stablecoin payments firm Reap Technologies for $600 million in May, while Kraken has pushed its listing back to the second quarter of 2027 at the earliest, according to Decrypt.

Saldo Bank president Jarkko Mäensivu said a banking license is only as valuable as what is built on top of it. Payward put it more bluntly, saying it is not acquiring a bank to be a bank but to gain infrastructure for serving European clients.

The purchase also settles a longer search. CoinDesk reported in July that Kraken had been seeking a banking license in Lithuania, and the Saldo deal secures one through an acquisition instead.

What's next

Regulatory approval in Lithuania and at the European level is the main hurdle before the 2027 close. In the U.S., Payward applied in May for a national trust company charter, and the Independent Community Bankers of America has sued the OCC over such charters for crypto firms, Decrypt said. "Any non-fiduciary firm seeking the benefits of a federal bank charter should meet the same standards as community banks," ICBA chief executive Rebecca Romero Rainey said in a statement.

Crypto firms are buying regulated footholds elsewhere too, as shown by SBI's completed takeover of Bitbank and Standard Chartered's new bitcoin and ether trading in the UAE. If approved, the Payward Saldo Bank deal would give Kraken's parent a banking license that most crypto rivals in Europe still lack.