Kraken's parent Payward said on Wednesday it had signed an agreement to acquire Saldo Bank, a Lithuania-based digital lender — a deal that puts a European Union banking licence in the crypto group's hands. According to The Banks, Saldo closed 2025 with 163.9 million euros (about $180 million) on its balance sheet, 22.7% more than a year earlier. It is licensed in Lithuania and operates in Finland, Sweden and Germany too, with its authorisation passported into the Netherlands.
The deal still needs regulatory approval and is slated for completion in 2027. If it goes through, the Financial Times reports, Payward becomes the first digital-asset firm to buy a European bank. Payward says the licence lets it bring European customers euro payments, interest-paying deposit accounts, lending and card products — a decisive step beyond crypto trading into the business of a conventional lender.
For an exchange founded in 2011, this is the clearest signal yet of where the industry's next contest is playing out: inside regulated banking.
Why it matters
The move is not a one-off. CoinDesk reported in July that Kraken had already been seeking a banking licence in Lithuania, so the Saldo purchase looks like a shortcut to what the firm could not win by application alone. Payward is structuring the deal through Saldo Finance Oy, the Finnish holding company whose subsidiary Saldo Bank UAB carries the Lithuanian special bank licence, which the Bank of Lithuania register dates to October 2021.
The numbers show this is about infrastructure, not balance-sheet bulk. Payward's banking arm has already written loans worth more than $2 billion — over eleven times Saldo's own asset base — and in the US it carries a limited-purpose master account at the Federal Reserve alongside an electronic-money licence in Ireland. The Saldo acquisition adds the missing EU deposit-taking powers. In August the firm launched a multi-asset debit card in the US through Kraken's Krak payments app, letting customers spend crypto or fiat while earning up to 2% cashback in dollars or bitcoin. That pattern — payments first, full banking later — echoes how Payward has been steadily assembling its banking stack this year, alongside its UAE expansion with full VARA approval and its earlier liquidity talks with Wells Fargo.
What to watch
- Regulatory approval: the deal must clear banking supervisors before the expected 2027 close.
- Product rollout: interest-bearing deposits, SME lending and card issuance across the five European markets.
- Saldo's own pipeline: its credit card has launched in Finland, with Sweden slated for 2027.
- The US parallel: Coinbase and Ripple have conditional approval for national trust bank charters from the OCC — a different route to the same goal.
- Integration: when Kraken customers can actually hold euro deposits and borrow against assets without selling.
MarketRadar take
| Exchange parent | Banking route | Region | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Payward (Kraken) | Buy Saldo Bank | EU | Agreement signed; close expected 2027 |
| Coinbase | Conditional OCC trust charter | US | Conditional approval |
| Ripple | Conditional OCC trust charter | US | Conditional approval |
Licences are becoming the real moat in crypto. A year ago exchanges competed on fees and listings; now the race is who can take deposits and lend in a regulated frame. Kraken's purchase route gets it live EU banking powers in one transaction, while rivals wait on US charter approvals that carry more limited permissions. Bullish for Kraken's EU footprint — it converts a dependency on banking partners into an owned rail, with deposit income diversifying a trading-fee business.
