Kraken Parent Payward Agrees to Buy Lithuania-Licensed Saldo Bank, Closing Expected in 2027

Payward, the Wyoming-based parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, said today, Oct. 14, that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Saldo Finance Oy. The Finnish holding company owns Saldo Bank UAB, a digital bank licensed in Lithuania.

The companies expect the deal to close in 2027, subject to regulatory approvals. Kraken declined to disclose the price, saying it does not disclose financial terms for its deals.

If it closes, Payward would be the first crypto-native firm to own a European bank, according to the Financial Times and Fortune.

What Payward is buying

Saldo holds an EU banking license it has had since 2021. It operates in Lithuania, Finland, Sweden and Germany, with passporting rights into the Netherlands. Under EU rules, passporting lets a licensed bank serve other member countries without getting a separate license in each one.

The bank already offers retail term deposits in all four of its operating markets. It makes consumer loans in Lithuania, Finland and Sweden, and loans to small and mid-sized businesses in Lithuania and Finland. Its credit card is live in Finland, with a Swedish launch expected by 2027.

Saldo also provides SEPA payment access and embedded lending services for fintech partners in Finland and Germany.

It is not large. According to figures from The Banks cited by CoinDesk, Saldo had €163.9 million in total assets at the end of 2025, up 22.7% from a year earlier.

Payward's stated plan

Payward says the purchase would let it offer interest-bearing deposits, consumer and business loans, credit cards, and banking infrastructure that other fintechs could build on, all subject to regulatory approvals.

"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," said Arjun Sethi, Payward's co-CEO. "We are starting in the EU, and the ambition is global."

Sethi told the Financial Times that customers keep asking for products similar to what they get from a traditional bank. He described a single system holding cash, crypto, tokenized stocks and credit, in which customers could borrow against assets without selling them.

A Kraken spokesperson told Fortune: "Once the deal closes in 2027, we hope to expand shortly thereafter."

Payward's own announcement frames the deal as infrastructure. "We're not acquiring a bank to be a bank," the company wrote.

How it compares with U.S. crypto banking

The deal goes further than what U.S. peers have secured. Coinbase and Ripple have received conditional approval for national trust bank charters, which let them custody client assets and handle settlement but not accept deposits.

Payward's U.S. arm, Kraken Financial, got a limited-purpose Federal Reserve account about seven months ago. That lets Payward send and receive dollar payments through Fedwire without intermediary banks. The company says it has also originated more than $2 billion in loans and holds an e-money license from the Central Bank of Ireland.

In Europe, Kraken already holds a MiCA license granted by the Central Bank of Ireland in June 2025. Media outlets reported in July that Kraken was considering Lithuania as the base for a full EU banking license. Buying an existing bank is a different route to the same place.

The risk side

Taking deposits and making loans is a heavier regulatory load than running an exchange. A TradingView analysis of the deal says expanding into full-scale banking increases cross-border European regulatory scrutiny and widens the exposure to financial crime and cyberattacks.

Those risks, the analysis said, were recently highlighted by security vulnerabilities at Revolut. That is the commentary's own framing. Payward has not publicly addressed it.

The approval process is the gate. Saldo is licensed in Lithuania, and a change of ownership at a licensed bank brings regulators into the picture. No regulator has publicly commented on the deal.

The wider Payward picture

The announcement follows a busy stretch. Bloomberg reported in September, citing people familiar with the matter, that Nasdaq was investing $100 million in Payward at a $21 billion valuation. The companies are developing blockchain-based versions of stocks, expected to launch in the second quarter of 2027, with Kraken serving as a distribution platform.

Payward and SoFi Technologies have also agreed to route SoFi customers' crypto orders through Kraken Prime. This week Payward announced plans to launch in the UAE after receiving full approval from Dubai's Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority.

The company's IPO timeline has slipped. Incrypted, citing the Financial Times, reports Payward has pushed a public listing to at least the second quarter of 2027 because of unfavorable market conditions. That would be the second delay, after plans were put on hold in March 2026 amid falling crypto prices and weak trading volumes. Payward has not detailed those plans in its acquisition announcement.

What comes next

Nothing changes for Saldo customers today. The deal closes only after approvals from the relevant European authorities, and Payward's expansion across Saldo's markets is not expected until after that.

The price remains undisclosed, and the question of how a bank with roughly €164 million in assets would carry Payward's broader ambitions will not be answered until regulators clear the transaction and Payward lays out its post-closing plan.