Kraken Bank on Track to Launch Soon, Says Kraken Chief Legal Officer

According to The Block, Kraken's chief legal officer Marco Santori said on The Scoop podcast that the crypto exchange is going to launch its own bank.

"Kraken Bank is very much on track to launch, very soon," Santori said.

Recently, the crypto industry is under more pressure from the US regulators. Last week, crypto-friendly bank Silvergate said in a file that it was "reevaluating its businesses and strategies in light of the business and regulatory challenges it currently faces". It then suspended Silvergate Exchange Network, its payments network for crypto settlement.

Talking about Kraken's banking relationships, Santori said they were secure, adding that the exchange has a "diversified group of banks all around the world".

"We're returning to an era where banks are going to be very cautious as to what accounts they open. Wall Street is going to be fine. Kraken and Coinbase are going to be okay. But the guy or gal who has a new idea about how to provide infrastructure to the crypto economy, it's going to be a really tough road over the next few years for them. No question."

In February, Kraken reached a settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to pay a $30m fine and shut down its staking service in the US. On this topic, Santori said staking had been a small percentage of Kraken's revenue, but the settlement did "affect pretty dramatically" its product mix in the country. "We've got a regulatory environment that is essentially forcing users off to use offshore exchanges that will gladly accept their business with so little as a VPN."