Payward Agrees to Buy Saldo Bank in Deal Expected to Close in 2027
Key Facts
Payward, the parent company of the Kraken platform, announced on October 14, 2026, that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Saldo Finance Oy, the Finnish holding company that owns Saldo Bank UAB, a specialized digital bank licensed in Lithuania. The company said the deal is expected to close in 2027, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. The agreement adds existing European banking infrastructure to Payward as it seeks to expand its financial services for customers in the region. The company did not disclose the deal value, according to a CoinDesk report. Completion remains subject to approvals and conditions, while Payward has outlined services it expects to offer after closing.
Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi said the company had been building its banking business “license by license,” and that having a regulated European bank would help it serve European customers as their primary financial institution. He added that the aim was to provide one place to hold, move and use assets. Payward presented the acquisition as giving it operating infrastructure to support these functions through a single institution. The deal thus signals an expansion from cryptocurrency trading into broader financial services, with execution tied to the regulatory approval process. The company did not promise a specific experience before or after cryptocurrency trading in the announcement.
According to Payward, the acquisition is expected to enable its banking business to pay interest on deposits, offer secured and unsecured loans to small and medium-sized businesses, and provide consumer lending and credit cards. Plans also include banking services for other businesses, along with card issuance and “SEPA” payments. The company tied these offerings to regulatory approvals, so they are planned services and are not all currently available through Payward. Saldo Bank already offers term deposits to individuals in all the markets where it is licensed. It provides consumer loans in Lithuania, Finland and Sweden, and loans to small and medium-sized businesses in Lithuania and Finland.
Payward has banking and regulatory infrastructure in other markets. It said it had obtained a limited-purpose master account with the Federal Reserve in the United States and holds an electronic money institution license from the Central Bank of Ireland. It also said it had extended loans worth more than $2 billion as of October 14, 2026. The acquisition is part of a banking expansion that the company says is proceeding through existing licenses and infrastructure, with the addition of an EU-licensed bank to its network. The difference in scope between the U.S. account and the European banking license is part of the regulatory picture Payward described. In announcing the deal, the company gave no other timetable for launching its planned services beyond requiring approvals and closing.
Saldo, meanwhile, has an established deposit and lending business, as well as a credit card launched in Finland. The company expects to launch the card in Sweden during 2027, according to Payward’s statement. The bank’s total assets stood at 163.9 million euros at the end of 2025, up 22.7% from a year earlier, according to CoinDesk. These figures offer a sense of the institution Payward intends to acquire, while the deal value remains undisclosed. The acquisition is expected to be completed in 2027 after customary conditions and regulatory approvals are met.
The deal follows Payward’s report of adjusted revenue of $508 million in the second quarter of 2026, up 17% year over year, while the platform’s total transaction volume fell 18% to $310 billion, according to company data. Payward said revenue tied to assets and services accounted for 60% of total revenue in that quarter, compared with 55% in the same period of 2025. This shift in revenue mix places services such as deposits and lending within a broader effort to diversify income sources, although the company did not directly link its quarterly results to the acquisition decision. The next step is to complete the deal in 2027, after closing conditions and regulatory approvals are satisfied.