Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, has agreed to acquire Lithuania's Saldo Bank, a deal that would give the group a full European Union license. According to the Financial Times, Payward would be the first crypto firm to buy a bank in Europe.

Payward signed a binding agreement in October 2026. The acquisition is structured through Saldo Finance Oy, Saldo's Finnish holding company. Neither party disclosed a purchase price, and the deal is expected to close in 2027, subject to approval by the relevant authorities.

Payward is the holding company behind Kraken, a centralized crypto exchange founded in San Francisco in 2011 that handles trading and custody of digital assets. Saldo Bank, by contrast, is a small digital specialist bank that issues consumer and business loans and offers term deposits. It received its EU banking license in 2021 and operates in Lithuania, Finland, Sweden and Germany; through passporting, the license also applies in the Netherlands.

A Small Bank With a Far-Reaching License

According to CoinDesk, Saldo reported total assets of EUR 163.9 million (about USD 180 million) at the end of 2025, an increase of 22.7% from the prior year. By European standards, that makes Saldo a comparatively small bank, and its business volume alone hardly explains the purchase. The license is what matters: an EU banking license permits deposit-taking and applies in other member states through passporting, meaning approval in one country is enough to offer services across the EU without separate sign-off. Saldo already has a presence in five European markets this way, so a buyer skips the process of building a license from scratch.

The product range is lean, yet it covers the core building blocks of a bank. Retail term deposits are available in all markets. Saldo issues consumer loans in Lithuania, Finland and Sweden, and offers secured and unsecured SME loans in Lithuania and Finland. The bank already offers a credit card in Finland and plans to launch it in Sweden in 2027. For a crypto company, however, the infrastructure behind the products matters more: Saldo has full SEPA access — the Single Euro Payments Area, the framework for euro transfers across Europe — and fintechs in Finland and Germany can draw on embedded lending, meaning loans built directly into their own products.

Payward and Saldo signed a binding agreement rather than a mere letter of intent, and the buyer confirmed the deal in its own announcement. The parties did not disclose the seller or the purchase price. Saldo President Jarkko Mäensivu framed the step in the same announcement: "A banking license is only as valuable as what you build on top of it," he said.

Payward Banking Moves From E-Money Institution to Full Bank

The group already runs its own financial business under the Payward Banking brand. According to the company, the unit has issued more than USD 2 billion in loans to date and holds a limited master account at the Federal Reserve, the type of account that connects an institution directly to the US central bank's payment system. In Europe, however, the business relies on an e-money institution (EMI) license from the Central Bank of Ireland, under which Kraken already operates in the EU. Such an e-money institution cannot take bank deposits, the core function of a bank and the funding base from which bank lending is financed.

Saldo is meant to fill that gap. Once the deal closes, Payward Banking plans to offer interest on deposits, lending products and banking-as-a-service in Europe, with passporting, card issuing and SME loans also on the agenda. Under a banking-as-a-service model, a licensed bank provides its infrastructure to third-party firms, which then build their own accounts, cards or loans on top of it.

Co-CEO Arjun Sethi told the Financial Times that the goal is a system combining cash, crypto, tokenized stocks and credit, in which customers can borrow or lend against their assets without selling them. A crypto investor could, in other words, pledge holdings rather than sell them.

"A regulated EU bank is the piece that lets us serve European clients the way a primary financial institution should," said Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward.

In the EU, the crypto services themselves remain subject to the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, the EU's common rulebook for crypto-asset issuance and services. The banking license covers a different area, namely deposits and lending. As a result, Payward brings crypto and banking together under one corporate roof in Europe.

Trust Charter in the US, Full Bank in the EU

The path in the United States looks different. In May 2026, Payward applied for a national trust bank charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the agency that supervises nationally chartered US banks. It remains unclear whether the OCC has granted the charter. Coinbase and Ripple have already received conditional approvals for such charters, which allow custody and transaction services but leave deposit-taking off limits — making a trust charter closer to a custody license than a full banking license.

Even this limited opening faces resistance. In October 2026, the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), an association representing small US community banks, sued the OCC, arguing that charters for crypto firms exceed the agency's authority. The defendant in the case is the regulator itself. The OCC declined to comment. With the lawsuit, the banking lobby has ultimately taken its fight against new competitors to court.

In the EU, Payward sidesteps this dispute. Instead of applying for its own license, the company is buying an existing bank, along with its deposit business. Sethi told the Financial Times that customer demand drove the move; among customers' biggest requests, he said, is the wish for products and services like those of any other bank. Supervisors still have to approve the change of ownership, but the license itself has existed since 2021.

Saldo Bank Joins a Series of Payward Acquisitions

The deal continues a run of acquisitions by Payward. In April 2026, the company announced the purchase of US derivatives exchange Bitnomial for USD 550 million, bringing licenses from the US derivatives regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), as an exchange (DCM), clearinghouse (DCO) and futures broker (FCM). This lets Bitnomial list, clear and broker futures contracts for clients, placing trading, clearing and brokerage in one place at Payward. A month later came Reap Technologies of Hong Kong for up to USD 600 million. Reap provides stablecoin payments and card issuing, and Payward paid in cash and shares, based on an equity valuation of USD 20 billion for itself.

Overall, Payward is buying licenses and infrastructure in 2026 rather than building them itself: Bitnomial covers US derivatives, Reap covers payments in Asia, and Saldo supplies the European banking business. Payward Banking plans to offer card issuing in Europe after the closing; through Reap, the service is already part of the offering in Asia.

In the announcement, Sethi did not describe Payward Banking as a new ambition. Instead, he said the company had built the business license by license and market by market. The price of the European piece remains undisclosed for now, and the next steps sit with regulators: European supervisors must still approve the change of ownership before the expected closing in 2027, while in the US, the OCC's decision on Payward's charter application and the ICBA lawsuit remain open.

Source: Crypto Valley Journal