Kraken parent Payward explores full-bank licenses outside the U.S.
Payward co-CEO Dave Ripley said the company is considering conventional banking status in other geographies as it expands beyond crypto trading.
By The Third AnglePublished 3 min read
Illustrative financial-services imagery for Payward's banking expansion; it does not depict Kraken, Payward or a bank branch. Photo: Unsplash · Unsplash License
Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, is exploring conventional banking licenses outside the United States as it broadens its business into payments, custody, lending and asset management. Co-CEO Dave Ripley told The Block: “We are looking into actually becoming a full bank in some of our other geographies, likely not the U.S. immediately.”
Ripley did not identify the jurisdictions or licenses under consideration. He said Payward is concentrating on trading, banking and asset management, while describing banking as payments and money movement, lending, yield and custody.
A broader financial stack
The plan would extend an existing regulated-infrastructure strategy rather than create a bank from scratch. Payward's August financial update describes Payward Banking as a planned money layer covering deposits, payments, cards, custody and lending, alongside Payward Asset Management and Payward Services.
In the United States, Payward already operates Kraken Financial, a Wyoming-chartered special purpose depository institution. The entity can provide digital-asset custody and institutional deposit accounts, but it is not a conventional insured bank and cannot lend customers' fiat, according to The Block's review of its status.
What a full-bank license would change
A conventional banking authorization could widen the products Payward offers in a given market. Ripley said the status could let the company offer more of those services to more users, without providing a timetable or naming a regulator.
Payward's stated ambition is larger than exchange access, but the announcement is exploratory. The company has not disclosed an application, approval, target country, capital plan or launch date for a new full-bank operation. Those details will determine whether the strategy becomes a regulated banking business or remains a product direction.
