Kraken’s banking subsidiary has secured a limited-purpose master account from the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, marking the first time a crypto-focused firm has gained direct access to the Federal Reserve’s core payment infrastructure.
Kraken Breaks New Ground With Direct Access To Fed’s Master Account
The firm said its subsidiary, Kraken Financial, has been approved for a Federal Reserve “master account,” according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The designation grants the company direct connectivity to Fedwire, a key U.S. interbank payment system that handles trillions of dollars in transactions daily.
“With a Federal Reserve master account, we can operate not as a peripheral participant in the US banking system, but as a directly connected financial institution,” Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi posited.
Previously, Kraken depended on partner banks to move U.S. dollars in and out. With direct Fed access, the company can now handle settlements on its own, potentially accelerating deposits and withdrawals for high-volume traders and institutional clients.
The approval “improves reliability and efficiency for moving fiat deposits in and out of digital-asset markets,” Sethi explained.
Crypto bank Custodia, also pursuing its own long-standing effort to obtain a Fed master account, took to social media to applaud Kraken’s achievement. In a post on X, Custodia said it is “continuing down a dual path of pursuing a Fed master account while expanding our collaborations with traditional banks in the tokenized deposit and stablecoin markets.”
A ‘Watershed Moment’ For Crypto Industry
The Wall Street Journal reports that Kraken Financial’s Fed master account comes with certain restrictions, including no interest on reserves and no access to the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending programs.
Kraken’s restricted account access seems to align with the “skinny” master account model the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors proposed in late 2025.
Still, U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis called the approval a “watershed moment for the digital asset industry.”
“The Federal Reserve has acknowledged what I’ve always said was the case — that a digital asset company can balance innovation with strong risk management,” Lummis noted in a press release. “[This] is going to create the 21st century financial services industry.”
Kraken Financial is chartered in Wyoming as a bank specifically tailored for crypto operations.
Journalist Eleanor Terrett described the move as a “historic shift” for the U.S. crypto industry in an X post, noting that it reflects a more welcoming stance from the Federal Reserve, which had been criticized for a harsher stance on crypto under the previous administration.
“The decision also impliedly recognizes that the Fed believes Kraken has sufficient anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance practices to curb illicit finance risk, and that Wyoming’s regulatory framework for special purpose depository institutions is in line with Federal banking standards,” Terrett postulated.
Source: https://zycrypto.com/kraken-just-made-history-as-first-crypto-company-with-access-to-feds-core-payments-systems/
