Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, announced plans to acquire Saldo Bank in a deal expected to close in 2027, subject to regulatory approval. The acquisition would expand Kraken's services beyond cryptocurrency trading to include deposit accounts, lending, and payment products.
The expansion creates a complex legal structure where customer funds would be held across multiple entities with different protections. A customer's salary, savings, and cryptocurrency holdings could appear as parts of a single account in an app interface, but they would represent different legal relationships with varying levels of protection.
Different Protections for Different Products
Eligible deposits at Saldo Bank would qualify for Lithuania's statutory deposit-guarantee scheme, which generally protects up to €100,000 per depositor at that bank. Electronic-money balances held through Payward Ireland Limited receive safeguarding but not ordinary bank deposit insurance. Bitcoin held through a custody service carries no deposit insurance against price losses.
The aggregation rule means a customer with €90,000 in eligible savings and €20,000 in another eligible account at Saldo would have €100,000 covered across €110,000 of total deposits. Payward has not yet announced the terms of an integrated salary product or specified which entity would receive payments first.
Saldo Bank's Financial Performance
The acquisition includes Saldo Bank's lending operations, adding complexity beyond a simple deposit license. According to the bank's June 2026 financial report, loans more than 90 days overdue increased substantially. The gross loan book expanded 18.5% from December 2024 to June 2026, while loans at least 90 days overdue more than doubled from €1.615 million to €3.514 million.
For 2025, Saldo Bank reported €10.4 million in operating profit before loan impairments, but €9.36 million in impairment expense reduced net annual profit to €962,000. In the first half of 2026, the bank reported a €545,000 net loss as credit-loss expense of €6.251 million exceeded operating profit before impairment losses of €5.706 million.
Customer Obligations and Transparency
Payward faces the challenge of explaining how money would travel between products without customers losing track of which institution holds their funds and what protections apply. Common ownership of multiple entities would not make one company a guarantor of balances owed by another, nor would it allow affiliates to use customer deposits outside applicable regulatory rules.
The legal counterparty, withdrawal conditions, and insolvency treatment can differ at each transfer point without customers ever leaving the same branded interface. Until Payward publishes the terms of its integrated salary product, the specific path a customer's paycheck would take remains unspecified.
