Kraken’s parent Payward has full VARA approval to serve clients in the UAE from Dubai. UAE customers will fund accounts in dirhams and trade on Kraken’s global order books. The exchange close
Kraken’s parent company Payward has secured Full Market Approval from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), allowing its local subsidiary Payward FZCO to serve both retail and institutional clients in the United Arab Emirates once the rollout is completed in the coming weeks. The full Virtual Asset Service Provider license, issued on October 6 and announced on October 12, covers broker-dealer activity along with management and investment services and follows the preliminary approval Payward received in May, which allowed it to prepare a local operation without onboarding customers.
Traders in the Emirates who use offshore platforms often convert dirhams (AED) into dollars through a bank or a third-party service before buying crypto, paying a currency spread on the way in and again on the way out. Kraken will accept AED deposits and withdrawals at launch and list AED trading pairs, with UAE orders matching against the same global order books its other customers use. Co-CEO Arjun Sethi said UAE clients will get the company’s existing global trading infrastructure, which should mean deeper liquidity than a ring-fenced local venue.
VARA’s public register lists Payward FZCO for broker-dealer and management and investment services, without the exchange services category held by Binance, OKX or Flipster, which fits a model where the Dubai entity passes client orders to Kraken’s global books instead of running a local order book of its own. Derivatives would require a further category on top of that.
Product Who gets it Status Spot trading, AED pairs and AED funding Eligible clients At launch Margin, staking and xStocks Subject to permissions Initial offering Kraken Prime and OTC spot Institutions Initial offering Derivatives and yield products To be confirmed Pending approvalKraken’s planned UAE lineup. Source: Payward.
Payward is also bringing Kraken Prime and OTC desks for larger clients, along with embedded trading infrastructure that would let regional brokers or fintech apps offer crypto inside their own products. Payward has not named a UAE partner yet, but on October 4 it connected the real-time settlement network of Singapore Gulf Bank, a Bahrain-regulated digital bank, to its institutional business. The xStocks tokens add price exposure to US stocks and exchange-traded funds on blockchain rails, without automatically carrying the voting, dividend or redemption rights of a directly held share.
Kraken obtained a financial services license from Abu Dhabi Global Market in April 2022 and promised AED funding, then shut the office in February 2023, three months after cutting roughly 30% of its global workforce as the bear market deepened. That first setup was meant to move dirhams through RAKBank, and when the office closed, Kraken converted the remaining AED balances into dollars for clients to withdraw.
Apr 2022 ADGM license, AED funding announced Feb 2023 Abu Dhabi office closed, AED support suspended May 2026 Preliminary VARA approval in Dubai Oct 2026 Full VARA license, AED trading returnsThe approvals come from different authorities, and Kraken has not described the Dubai license as a reversal of its 2023 decision, yet the result is the same dirham product returning under another emirate’s regulator.
Payward reported adjusted revenue of $508 million for the second quarter of 2026, up 17% year over year, while platform transaction volume fell 13% quarter over quarter to $310 billion. Growing revenue on lower volume suggests more income is coming from products outside plain spot trading, such as staking and prime services, which is where the UAE launch puts much of its weight, although Payward has not linked the two. The company, which claims more than 100 licenses and registrations worldwide, filed confidentially for a US IPO in November 2025, with September reports placing a listing no earlier than the second quarter of 2027.
VARA’s public register listed 58 licensed providers on October 12, up from 49 reported in May, with Binance, Crypto.com and OKX already operating under the Dubai framework and Bybit holding a federal platform-operator approval since October 2025. Banks are now competing for the same flow, with Standard Chartered launching spot Bitcoin and Ether trading for institutional clients through its DIFC branch in September under Dubai Financial Services Authority rules, and Capital.com plans spot crypto for UAE clients after its affiliate Capital Vault received a license from the Capital Market Authority. These regulators run separate systems, so a VARA license does not extend to activity supervised by the DFSA, ADGM or federal authorities.
Payward has given no date beyond the coming weeks and has not named the banks handling AED transfers, while derivatives and the yield products planned for late 2026 and 2027 still need separate VARA approval. The published fee schedule and the depth of the AED order books after launch will show how much the license is worth commercially.
Kraken’s approval landed one day after Rain MENA’s, and the table below mixes those licenses with other 2026 moves, such as new offices and product launches.
When Company and move Type APR RippleExpanded regional HQ in the DIFC Office JUN BitGo MENAElectronic trading added to OTC desk Product JUL FlipsterVARA exchange services license License AUG Flowdesk and DeribitVARA broker-dealer licenses License OCT RainVARA exchange and broker-dealer license License OCT Kraken (Payward)Full VARA approval, AED funding LicenseSelected 2026 crypto expansions in the UAE. Sources: VARA register, company announcements.
Ripple’s move added physical capacity, with an expanded Middle East and Africa headquarters in the DIFC sized to double its regional team, building on a DFSA license held since March 2025. Once Kraken seeks derivatives approval, it will meet Deribit on home ground, since the Coinbase-owned venue moved its global headquarters to Dubai in early 2025 and added spot trading routed through Coinbase Exchange after its August VARA broker-dealer license.
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