Kraken wants to be your bank, but who will protect your money?

The purchase would add deposit accounts, lending and payment services to a group better known for handling crypto trades, extending the banking push.

Putting a customer's salary, savings and Bitcoin holdings into a future Payward app could make them look like parts of one account, but that wouldn't make the money equally protected.

Eligible deposits at Saldo Bank, electronic-money balances with an existing Kraken payments entity, and Bitcoin held through a custody service all represent different legal relationships, even when their values are all displayed in euros.

Deposit insurance limits

If a salary were paid directly into an eligible Saldo Bank account, the money would qualify for Lithuania's statutory deposit-guarantee scheme, which generally protects up to €100,000 per depositor at that bank.

That limit applies to the customer's combined eligible deposits with the institution, not separately to every product or screen in an app.

Saldo's depositor information explains the aggregation rule, meaning someone with €90,000 in eligible savings and €20,000 in another eligible Saldo account would ordinarily have €100,000 covered across €110,000 of deposits.

Kraken's existing safeguarding disclosure for EEA clients describes another arrangement: Payward Ireland Limited operates as an electronic-money institution, with relevant funds safeguarded rather than treated as bank deposits.

The institution says it separates that money from its own operating funds and restricts how it can be used, but customers generally depend on the applicable process to identify and return money held under safeguarding arrangements, which can involve delays and costs.

The absence of an ordinary €100,000 deposit-insurance ceiling for safeguarded electronic money shouldn't be mistaken for an unlimited government guarantee.

Credit quality concerns

Payward would also inherit a conventional banking business whose finances depend on borrowers repaying their loans.

Saldo Bank's June 2026 financial report lists €196.9 million in assets, €169.4 million in retail deposits and a €129.5 million gross credit portfolio, meaning the acquisition adds a loan book alongside the banking license and deposit customers.

Its audited 2025 accounts show assets of about €162.9 million and retail deposits of €136.9 million at the end of last year. By June, those balances were about 21% and 24% higher, respectively.

Between December and June, retail deposits rose by €32.5 million, while gross credit exposure increased by about €5.8 million, or 4.7%.

Saldo's operating profit before impairment losses of €5.7 million was outweighed by €6.25 million in credit-loss expense, producing a €545,000 net loss in the reported period.

The audited figures show an 18.5% expansion of its gross loan book, from €104.4 million to €123.8 million, while loans at least 90 days overdue increased almost 118%, from €1.615 million to €3.514 million.

Their share of gross loans rose from about 1.55% to 2.84%, a more informative comparison than the overdue total alone because it accounts for the larger book.

That allowance represented about 8.84% of gross loans in June, up from 8.31% at the end of 2025, while credit-loss expense exceeded operating profit before impairment in the June filing.

Integrated banking plans

Payward's announced plans include interest-bearing deposits, consumer and business lending, card products, and banking services for other financial companies, including payment and issuance capabilities.

Combining these services could give Payward steadier business than transaction fees alone, because customers use bank accounts and payment services through quiet trading periods as well as busy ones.

Payward has also connected to Singapore Gulf Bank's institutional dollar-payment network, while Nasdaq agreed to invest $100 million in the group.

Saldo's lending operations could generate interest income, but expanding that loan book makes underwriting costs, loan losses, and funding rates as important as the number of new customers signing up.

Common ownership wouldn't make Saldo Bank a guarantor of balances owed by a different Payward company, nor would it let an affiliate borrow customer deposits outside the rules applying to bank exposures and related-party transactions.

Whether transfers between these businesses feel effortless to customers will have little bearing on who legally owes the money and how repayment works if one entity enters insolvency.

Payward hasn't published the terms of this integrated salary product, so the path a customer's paycheck would take remains an open item for the company to specify before launch.