Nikolas Sargeant
TL;DR
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Kraken parent company Payward is exploring plans to become a fully licensed bank in markets outside the United States.
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Co-CEO Dave Ripley identified trading, banking, and asset management as the company’s three main growth areas.
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Payward already operates Kraken Financial, a Wyoming-chartered institution offering digital asset custody and institutional deposit accounts.
Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, is exploring opportunities to offer full banking services outside the United States as it broadens its business beyond digital asset trading.
Speaking at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium 2026, Payward and Kraken co-CEO Dave Ripley said the company is considering becoming a fully licensed bank in certain international markets.
“We are looking into actually becoming a full bank in some of our other geographies, likely not the U.S. immediately,” Ripley told The Block.
He did not identify the jurisdictions under consideration or disclose which banking licenses the company may pursue.
Payward Targets Trading, Banking, and Asset Management
Ripley described trading, banking, and asset management as the three main areas shaping Payward’s expansion strategy.
The company already provides several services commonly associated with traditional banking, including payments, lending, yield-generating products, and custody.
“What is banking? It’s payments and money movement. It’s lending. It’s yield. It’s custody,” Ripley said. “We do all four of those things.”
Obtaining conventional banking authorization in additional markets could allow Payward to expand those offerings and make them available to a broader customer base.
“It’ll just allow us to offer more of those to more users,” Ripley added.
The move reflects Kraken’s wider effort to position itself as a financial infrastructure provider rather than solely a cryptocurrency exchange.
Payward currently operates Kraken Financial, a Wyoming-chartered Special Purpose Depository Institution.
The institution launched in March 2024 and is authorized to provide digital asset custody and deposit accounts for institutional clients.
However, Kraken Financial does not have the same permissions as a conventional bank.
It cannot lend customers’ fiat deposits, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation does not insure its accounts.
Those limitations help explain why Payward is exploring full banking status in other jurisdictions, where broader licensing could support a wider range of financial products.
Federal Reserve Account Expanded Kraken’s Payment Access
Earlier this year, Kraken Financial secured a limited-purpose Federal Reserve master account, commonly described as a “skinny” master account.
The approval allowed the institution to connect to parts of the Federal Reserve’s payment infrastructure.
The development marked the first such approval for a cryptocurrency company and represented a significant step in Kraken’s integration with traditional financial systems.
However, the limited-purpose account does not transform Kraken Financial into a conventional bank or eliminate the restrictions associated with its Wyoming charter.
Payward Chief Commercial Officer Mark Greenberg suggested that the company could eventually introduce additional financial services beyond its current offerings.
“If they want to come to us and get a mortgage at some point, hopefully we can offer those kinds of services,” Greenberg said.
While Payward has not announced a mortgage product or provided a timeline for obtaining full banking licenses, the comments indicate that the company is considering a much broader long-term role in consumer and institutional finance.
If those plans materialize, Kraken could evolve from a cryptocurrency trading platform into a more comprehensive financial services provider combining digital assets, banking, payments, lending, and asset management.
This latest development comes a few days after Kraken launched commission-free US stock trading across the EEA, offering over 7,000 shares alongside 700 tokenized xStocks and 600 cryptocurrencies.
