Payward, the parent company of the crypto exchange Kraken, is looking into ways to offer banking services outside of the U.S. as it expands beyond crypto trading into asset management and other financial infrastructure services.
"We are looking into actually becoming a full bank in some of our other geographies, likely not the U.S. immediately," Payward and Kraken co-CEO Dave Ripley told The Block at Wyoming Blockchain Symposium 2026.
Ripley didn't specify which jurisdictions or banking licenses Payward is pursuing, but he described trading, banking and asset management as the three product areas that the firm is honing in on.
"What is banking?
It’s payments and money movement.
