Kraken Owner Payward Acquires Finnish Bank for EU Banking Licence

Payward, Inc., the financial infrastructure group behind Kraken and a range of trading and asset-management products, has entered a definitive agreement to acquire Saldo Finance Oy, the Finnish holding company that owns Saldo Bank UAB. The Lithuanian subsidiary holds a banking licence granted by the European Central Bank and is regulated by the Bank of Lithuania.

The transaction requires regulatory clearance and is forecast to complete in 2027. Neither party disclosed financial terms.

Saldo Bank operates in Lithuania, Finland, Sweden and Germany, with European passport rights to serve customers in the Netherlands. The bank's product range includes:

• Retail term deposits across all four active markets
• Consumer loans in Lithuania, Finland and Sweden
• Secured and unsecured SME loans in Lithuania and Finland
• A credit card launched in Finland, due to roll out in Sweden next year
• Embedded lending infrastructure for other fintech firms in Finland and Germany

At the end of September 2026, the bank employed just over 90 people.

For Payward, the deal adds a crucial piece to the licensing infrastructure the group has been building over recent years. The company already holds a Federal Reserve limited-purpose master account in the United States and an e-money institution licence from the Central Bank of Ireland. An EU banking licence represents a significant upgrade, unlocking deposit-taking, card issuance, lending and full SEPA payment rails under one regulated entity, with passporting as the route to cross-border expansion.

Co-chief executive Arjun Sethi outlined the strategic rationale for the purchase.

A regulated EU bank is the piece that lets us serve European clients the way a primary financial institution should: one place to hold assets, move them freely, and put them to work. We believe whoever owns that relationship earns the right to serve everything around it.

Payward Banking, the group's banking arm, has originated more than $2 billion in loans. The Saldo acquisition is designed to bring that lending capability inside the European regulatory perimeter, alongside interest-bearing deposits and banking-as-a-service offerings for third-party fintech clients.

The deal reflects a wider trend among crypto-adjacent infrastructure groups pursuing full banking status in the EU. Holding a banking licence rather than an e-money licence carries distinct advantages: membership of deposit-guarantee schemes, the ability to pay interest on deposits, and access to central bank liquidity facilities. It also brings stricter capital requirements under the Capital Requirements Regulation and direct ECB supervision, which increases compliance costs but strengthens credibility with institutional clients and corporate treasurers.

The EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation (MiCA), which reached its final implementation phase this year, has raised the commercial value of regulated banking infrastructure for digital-asset firms. MiCA creates a clear authorisation path for crypto-asset service providers but does not grant deposit-taking or lending powers. A bank licence does. For Payward, which already serves a substantial European retail and institutional client base through Kraken, combining MiCA-authorised crypto services with a licensed bank offers a more complete financial institution proposition than most competitors can currently deliver.

Rivals in the sector, including several neobanks and banking-as-a-service platforms with EU licences, have typically grown from banking into crypto rather than the other way around. Whether the Bank of Lithuania and ECB view the change of control favourably will hinge on their assessment of the acquirer's compliance framework. The 2027 close timeline suggests Payward anticipates a lengthy approval process.