Kraken owner Payward to buy Saldo Bank for an EU bank license

Payward, the company that owns Kraken, agreed on October 14 to buy Saldo Bank, a small digital lender in Lithuania. Terms were not disclosed. The deal would hand the crypto exchange a full European Union bank license, if regulators approve.

In a press release, the firm said it is buying Saldo Finance Oy, the Finnish holding company behind Saldo Bank UAB. Regulators classify Saldo as a specialized bank, licensed in Lithuania and cleared to operate across five European markets. Coverage from Bloomberg and others framed Payward as one of the first major crypto exchange operators to directly own a licensed EU bank. The agreement is definitive, but it is not done. Closing is expected in 2027, once supervisors sign off and the usual conditions are met.

What Payward is buying

Saldo Bank runs on a digital-first model, with no branch network to speak of. It takes term deposits in Lithuania, Finland, Sweden and Germany. It lends to consumers in Lithuania, Finland and Sweden, and to small firms in Lithuania and Finland. A credit card is already live in Finland, with a Sweden launch planned for 2027. Saldo also rents its lending systems to other fintech companies in Finland and Germany.

It is a small bank. Saldo reported about 197 million euros in assets at the end of June, according to The Defiant, and a net profit near one million euros for 2025, Cryptobriefing reported. Set that beside Kraken, which says it has originated more than 2 billion dollars in loans. Payward also holds a limited-purpose master account at the US Federal Reserve, which it won in March.

Why an exchange wants a bank

Kraken already holds several licenses in Europe. What it lacks is a bank. Payward operates in the bloc under an electronic money license from the Central Bank of Ireland. That license lets it hold customer money and move payments. It does not let the firm pay interest on deposits or lend that money out, as Cryptobriefing explained. Payward already carries MiFID and MiCA authorizations in the region too, Finance Magnates noted. The bank is the missing layer, not a first step.

A bank license changes the math. Banks can take deposits, lend them, and earn the gap between what they pay savers and what they charge borrowers. They also sit inside a safety net, with deposit protection and a supervisor reading the books. With Saldo's charter, Payward says it would pay yield on balances, make secured and unsecured loans, issue credit cards, and sell its banking tools to other firms. Every piece needs a regulator's approval first. Nothing is live yet.

Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Payward, put the logic plainly. "A regulated EU bank is the piece that lets us serve European clients the way a primary financial institution should," he said. Saldo Bank president Jarkko Mäensivu framed it from the other side. "A banking license is only as valuable as what you build on top of it," he said.

Part of a wider push into banking

Payward is not alone. Over the past two years, exchanges and stablecoin issuers have gathered licenses that look more like a bank's than a startup's. Deutsche Bank is weeks from holding bitcoin and ether for clients in Germany. The European Union recently named Circle's USDC its first significant e-money token. Owning a bank outright goes a step further than any of those.

Sethi reached for a line often used by JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon: if you want to be a bank, become a bank. He quoted it, then said Payward is starting in the EU with a global ambition, according to Unchained.

There is a catch. Bank licenses bring capital rules, deposit protection duties and supervisors who can say no. A crypto firm that owns a bank answers to its crypto regulators and its banking ones at the same time. That means more oversight, not less. Approval is not a formality either. Taking over a bank triggers a change-of-control review, where supervisors test the buyer's finances, owners and plans. That is one reason the timeline stretches into 2027.

What to watch

The deal is signed, not closed. Payward expects it to complete in 2027, and that rests on approval from regulators in Lithuania and beyond. Watch whether those approvals arrive, and what conditions come attached. Watch, too, how much of Saldo's small balance sheet Payward actually puts to work. A license is one thing. A working European bank that pays interest and lends at scale is another. Until the deal closes, nothing changes for Kraken's customers in Europe.