Kraken continues to diversify its crypto payment offerings with an expansion in the UK and Europe as it attempts to steer customers away from the traditional finance sector.
Kraken will begin rolling out the Mastercard-branded Krak Card in the UK and Europe “soon”.
In a statement published on November 25, Kraken said the new cards will offer customers 1% cash back on every purchase made.
Available both physically and virtually, the Krak Card enables users to make payments via Mastercard’s global payment network, to perform instant transactions at the point-of-sale with no FX or monthly fees attached.
With every purchase made with the Krak Card, users can earn 1% cash back to be paid out in the users’ preferred fiat currency, or Bitcoin.
Kraken also confirmed new features, such as salary deposits and wealth-building opportunities, will become available to UK and European users as part of the rollout.
Payments can be made in more than 400 supported crypto and fiat currencies and can be used in tandem to complete the overall transaction.
Kraken highlighted an example, spending £80 on a £100 purchase, and then paying the remaining £20 in a secondary digital currency, such as Bitcoin or Solana, which provides users with fiat-to-crypto conversions at the checkout.
“To us, everything is money. You should be able to use whatever assets you hold to pay for everyday goods and services in the digital era we live in,” said Mark Greenberg, Global Head of Consumer at Kraken.
“From groceries to getaways, the Krak Card makes value move freely, no matter who you are or how you choose to store your money.”
Kraken’s crypto bank ambitions
One of the core ambitions for the growth of the Krak Card in the UK and Europe is not only to deliver “compelling card experiences”, but also to incentivise traditional finance (TradFi) customers “replacing their traditional bank with a modern, multi-asset alternative built for the modern digital economy”.
Over the last several years, Kraken has placed significant focus on its payments offerings by bridging the DeFi and TradiFi sectors.
This year alone, Kraken launched Kraken Pay to speed up crypto-to-fiat conversions, gained access to Mastercard’s 150 million global merchant base to provide its payment services, and launched crypto-as-a-service tool Kraken Embed to integrate its crypto trading services to traditional finance platforms.
As part of its latest offering in the UK and Europe, Kraken will launch Vaults, a growth strategy tool for customers to earn 10+% APY by holding idle assets via audited lending protocols.
Customers can earn these returns as they can tailor their investment and growth preferences by matching their individual risk profile, something the crypto exchange states provided more “competitive rewards than legacy financial institutions can provide”.
Kraken’s UK roots hit marketing issue
Since 2013, Kraken has been one of the more established crypto firms operating in the UK.
The business received an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in March 2025.
The latest offerings from the Krak Card only serve to fuel the crypto company’s ambitions in both the UK and Europe, but certain FCA crypto guidelines are a cause for concern for Kraken Co-CEO Arjun Sethi.
He told the Financial Times this month that the FCA’s crypto marketing and promotion rules could hurt long-term investor confidence if they are being deterred from the mandated risk warnings on all promotional activities.
It remains unclear how the current promotional and marketing rules in the UK may affect the rollout of the Krak Card.
Fresh capital signals 2026 IPO launch
Moving away from Kraken’s payment expansion in the UK and Europe, the company is seeking to become the latest crypto exchange to launch an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the US next year.
Kraken filed an S-1 IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week. This provides a prospectus to investors for business performance, financial health and risk management and also how it will apply the added capital it raises if it goes public.
This comes off the back of Kraken raising $800m in its latest funding round. This was led by a $200m strategic investment from Citadel Securities, with Jane Street and DRW Global Investments among others investors.
The added capital means Kraken’s valuation now jumps to $20bn.
