Kraken's parent company Payward has secured regulatory approval from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) to offer a broad suite of crypto services to clients in the United Arab Emirates. The license covers spot trading, margin trading, OTC trading, staking, AED fiat funding, and Prime services — a lineup that puts Payward among the more comprehensively licensed operators in the region.
What VARA signed off on
VARA is Dubai's dedicated crypto regulator, set up in 2022 to oversee virtual asset activities in the emirate — and increasingly, it's become the gateway for global exchanges wanting to serve the UAE's wealthy retail and institutional base. Payward's approval goes beyond basic buy-sell. It lets the firm run margin and OTC desks, offer staking products, and handle direct AED deposits and withdrawals. The Prime services bit means institutional clients get the full white-glove treatment.
Kraken's been playing catch-up in the Middle East. Binance and Bybit both landed VARA approvals earlier in 2025 and 2026, and Coinbase has had a regional hub in Abu Dhabi for a while. This move gets Payward — and by extension Kraken — into the same sandbox. The UAE is one of the few jurisdictions where regulators have actually written rules for crypto instead of just warning people off. Being licensed there means direct access to a market that's actively courting digital asset firms.
Payward hasn't said when services will go live for UAE clients. The approval is the license; the actual rollout depends on operational setup — local banking rails for AED, staffing, compliance infrastructure. VARA approvals typically come with conditions, including periodic reporting and on-site inspections. Watch for a launch announcement in the next quarter.
