Kraken secures full VARA license in the UAE through parent company Payward
- Kraken is now licensed in the UAE.
- UAE users will be able to trade spot and margin products.
- On-chain staking, Xstocks, and Krak will also be part of the products it will now offer in the country.
Kraken, through its parent entity Payward, has officially expanded into the UAE with a full crypto brokerage, management and investment license from Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA), just months after it received its preliminary approval.
The approval now allows Kraken to onboard both retail and institutional investors. Kraken had for years tried to enter the UAE market, when it launched in Abu Dhabi in 2022, but later had to withdraw and downsize. Now, it is returning bigger and stronger than ever.
Kraken to roll out AED fiat pairs on spot and margin products
Users in the UAE will now be able to trade spot and margin products using AED fiat pairs, while funding and withdrawing directly in UAE dirhams. Additionally, clients can stake, access xstocks, and Krak, which is the company’s crypto transfer platform.
While institutional clients will be able to access OTC trading services and Kraken Prime.
“From launch, clients in the UAE get the same order book and multi-asset coverage we run in every other market, under one of the clearest regulatory frameworks in the world,” said Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward and Kraken.
“Payward’s regulatory infrastructure now connects them directly to Kraken’s market-leading liquidity, along with a growing range of opportunities across digital assets.”
Kraken says this is only the beginning of its plans for the UAE market. Kraken wants to later expand its offering with crypto derivative products, yield-generating products, which they note will be introduced either in late 2026 or early 2027.
All these products will be subject to VARA’s regulatory approval.
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Lara Abdul Malak
Lara Abdul Malak is a tech journalist for more than 15 years. She covers blockchain, crypto, tokenization and Web3 news coming out of the MENA region. She wrote for Cointelegraph Arabic Middle East. She studied political science at the American University of Beirut. She got interested in blockchain after interviewing Vitalik Buterin in 2014.
