Kraken buys a bank in the EU: Payward acquires Lithuania's Saldo Bank

Kraken buys a bank in the EU: Payward acquires Lithuania's Saldo Bank

On October 14, Payward, the parent company of the Kraken exchange, agreed to buy the Finnish holding company Saldo Finance Oy. It owns Lithuania's Saldo Bank UAB, and with it Payward gets an EU banking license.

The parties did not disclose the price. Regulatory approval is required, and closing is expected in 2027.

What a banking license provides

With the license, Payward will be able to pay interest on deposits and issue loans in Europe. For a crypto exchange, this is a step toward becoming a traditional bank.

Saldo Bank operates in Lithuania, Finland, Sweden and Germany and holds a passport in the Netherlands. This is an operating bank with a presence in several countries.

Payward co-founder and co-CEO Arjun Sethi said that a regulated bank in the EU will make it possible to serve European clients as their primary financial institution.

Earlier, Payward applied to the US OCC for national trust bank status. The European deal continues the same line.

The line between exchange and bank is blurring

In our view, this is one of the most telling deals of the year. A crypto exchange no longer wants to be just a place to trade and is moving to where savings and loans sit.

For the client, this means fewer intermediaries. Deposits, loans and a trading account may end up within the same group of companies.

What this means for an arbitrage trader

From what we see, the bottleneck in cross-exchange arbitrage is often not the spread but the fiat on-ramps. Euro deposits and withdrawals go through banks, and while the money is in transit, the window closes.

We believe an in-house bank within the group could shorten this path. If euro deposits and withdrawals become faster and more predictable, capital will sit idle less between trades.

But the deal will not close before 2027, and until then everything works as before. It is too early to plan trades that rely on fast euro transfers.

Our tools

When fiat on-ramps speed up, what matters is how fast you react to price gaps, and those are easier to catch when you see all exchanges at once. Our arbitrage screener keeps dozens of venues in one window, refreshes quotes every second and shows each gap together with the volume actually behind it. The spread calculator helps you check what survives fees, network costs and slippage at your size. The bot is fully manual. It never connects to your exchange API keys.

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FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

1. Which bank is Kraken buying?

Its parent company Payward is buying the Finnish holding company Saldo Finance Oy, which owns Lithuania's Saldo Bank UAB.

2. When will the Kraken and Saldo Bank deal close?

Regulatory approval is required, and closing is expected in 2027. The price has not been disclosed.

3. What will an EU banking license give Kraken?

The right to pay interest on deposits and issue loans in Europe. The bank operates in Lithuania, Finland, Sweden and Germany and has a passport in the Netherlands.

4. Will euro withdrawals from Kraken get faster?

It is too early to say. An in-house bank could shorten the money's path, but until the deal closes in 2027 everything works as before.

Conclusion

Payward has agreed to buy Saldo Finance Oy together with Lithuania's Saldo Bank and will receive an EU banking license. The deal requires regulatory approval, and closing is expected in 2027.

For the market, this is another step toward the merging of crypto exchanges and banks. For an arbitrage trader, the interest lies in fiat on-ramps: if euros move faster, capital sits idle less between trades.

IMPORTANT! We are software developers. We do not give recommendations or promises of earnings and we do not advise you to invest your money anywhere. Our software is fully manual, all your money stays under your own control. We show examples of how our clients have earned on arbitrage in the past, but we do not advise repeating those actions one to one. Your earnings depend solely on your own actions and on market factors.