Kraken's owner buys a bank: Payward agrees to take over Lithuania's Saldo Bank, reported to be the first crypto company to buy a European bank

The company behind Kraken wants to be a bank in Europe, and it has found one to buy. Payward said on Wednesday that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Saldo Finance Oy, a Finnish holding company whose subsidiary, Saldo Bank UAB, is a digital bank licensed in Lithuania. The bank takes retail term deposits in Lithuania, Finland, Sweden and Germany and passports into the Netherlands; it lends to consumers in three of those markets and to small firms in two, and launched a credit card in Finland with Sweden to follow in 2027.

Payward did not disclose the price. CoinDesk, citing The Banks, put Saldo's total assets at about €164 million (roughly $180 million) at the end of 2025, and said the Financial Times reported that the deal would make Payward the first crypto company to buy a bank in Europe. The deal is expected to close in 2027 once regulators sign off.

Kraken has been collecting licences for a while: Payward holds a limited-purpose master account at the US Federal Reserve, an electronic money licence from the Central Bank of Ireland and has applied for a US national trust bank charter, and it says its banking arm has originated more than $2 billion in loans. With Saldo it plans interest-bearing deposits, secured and unsecured loans, cards, full SEPA payments access and banking-as-a-service for other fintechs. "A regulated EU bank is the piece that lets us serve European clients the way a primary financial institution should," said Arjun Sethi, Payward's co-chief executive.