Kraken Secures Final VARA Approval Ahead of UAE Launch

what happened

Finance Magnates reports that Payward, the parent company of Kraken, received Full Market Approval from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) on Monday. The decision completes the regulator’s licensing process. In May, Payward FZCO had obtained preliminary authorization for broker-dealer, investment and management activities, allowing it to establish local operations but not accept customers. The new approval covers retail, professional and institutional investors, enabling Kraken to approach Dubai’s retail traders directly within the services VARA permits. Payward says it has more than 100 licenses and registrations worldwide.

Kraken is entering after Crypto.com’s Dubai operation won VARA approval for exchange and broker-dealer services in November 2023, while Binance Dubai obtained its full license in April 2024 and began shifting UAE users away from its global platform in June. Bybit said in October 2025 that it had instead secured a full platform-operator license from the UAE’s federal Securities and Commodities Authority. Dubai regulates activities separately, including brokerage, custody, lending and advisory services, and sets capital requirements according to the relevant activity. FinanceMagnates.com discussed that framework in a May comparison of the US, EU, Singapore and Dubai.

At the UAE rollout, customers will be able to trade spot and margin products on dirham-quoted pairs and move the local currency directly into and out of their accounts, Payward said. Retail customers will receive on-chain staking, transfers via the Krak app and access to xStocks, tokenized equities whose backing assets exceeded $800 million in September. Institutions will get OTC spot trading and Kraken Prime, the self-service platform Kraken launched for institutions in August. Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Payward and Kraken, said UAE customers would have “the same order book and multi-asset coverage we run in every other market.” Crypto derivatives and additional yield offerings may follow later in 2026 and during 2027, but only after regulatory clearance. VARA’s rules, revised in March, require a platform to obtain specific approval before offering futures, options or perpetual contracts. Payward also intends to make its trading technology available to regional businesses as an embedded service. The expansion comes as adjusted second-quarter revenue increased 17% year over year to $508 million, while platform transaction volume dropped 13% from the first quarter to $310 billion. Payward confidentially filed with the SEC in November 2025; CoinDesk reported in September, citing people familiar with the matter, that a listing is not planned before the second quarter of 2027.

why it matters

The approval gives Kraken a regulated route into the UAE but leaves individual product launches subject to VARA’s activity-by-activity framework. It also adds a new regional expansion effort while Payward’s quarterly transaction volume is declining.

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