Kraken's neobanking arm Krak is expanding its Virtual IBAN footprint into four new European markets — Latvia, Greece, Croatia, and Hungary — and pairing the rollout with one of the most aggressive salary rewards on the market: a recurring 1% match on every payday, capped at €250 per month or €3,000 per year, with no promotional expiry.
For users in the four launch countries, it means a real EUR account on SEPA rails, ready to plug into local payroll and direct-debit systems, that earns rewards passively as long as a salary lands in it.
A German IBAN on local rails
Accounts open inside the Krak app in a few minutes. Each user gets a dedicated Virtual IBAN starting with the DE country code, hosted on SEPA infrastructure — the same rails used by Deutsche Bank, Sparkasse, and every other euro-area institution.
In practice, the IBAN behaves like a domestic account: salary deposits, rent, utilities, insurance, subscriptions, and peer-to-peer transfers all run through standard SEPA. EUR transfers settle same-day with no holding period or vague "1–3 business day" window. GBP transfers are handled natively as well, which matters for users splitting their financial lives between an EU country and the UK — no forced conversion, no detour through a third currency.
A note worth flagging: while SEPA rules technically prohibit "IBAN discrimination" (refusing a payment because the IBAN doesn't begin with the local country code), some employers, landlords, and utilities in practice still push back on foreign IBANs. It's an enforcement gap rather than a regulatory one, but it's a friction point users in the four launch markets should be aware of.
Salary Match: the headline feature
Most neobanks compete on signup bonuses that expire after 90 days. Krak is going the other way — offering a perpetual 1% match on any salary paid into the account, with no end date.
The math is straightforward:
- €3,000 monthly salary → €30 back
- €5,000 monthly salary → €50 back
- €9,000 monthly salary → €90 back
The match is capped at €250 per month and €3,000 per year, and credited at the start of the following month. Over two years, a €5,000 salary generates €1,200 in Salary Match alone, before any spending or yield activity is layered in.
There's no application or approval flow. The setup:
- Open a Krak account and find the IBAN under Receive → Bank.
- Share the IBAN with the employer, payroll provider, or clients.
- Any salary credited during the calendar month qualifies automatically.
- The match is credited at the start of the following month.
How it stacks with the rest of the product
The Salary Match doesn't sit alone. Layered on top:
2% cashback on every purchase. The Krak card earns 2% back, paid in EUR or BTC, on all spending. No category caps, no rotating bonus structures, no annual fee.
Up to 8% APY on USDC via Vaults. Krak Vaults pay yield on USDC balances directly inside the app, with continuous accrual, fast withdrawals, and no minimum balance. The 8% tier is gated to Kraken+ subscribers.
Fee-free FX at the Mastercard rate. Card spending in foreign currencies converts at the interbank rate without a markup.
Combine all three layers and the numbers move quickly. A user with a €5,000 salary and €2,000 of monthly card spend earns roughly €90 a month — €50 from Salary Match, €40 from cashback — or about €1,080 per year, before any yield on idle balances. That's compounding economics that's hard to find at any incumbent retail bank in Europe.
Why this matters for the European neobank landscape
The Salary Match is the more interesting story than the IBAN expansion itself. SEPA Virtual IBANs are now table stakes for any serious EU-facing neobank — Revolut, N26, bunq, and Wise have all built variations of the same primitive. What's unusual is making the salary deposit the rewarded action, indefinitely.
It also signals where Kraken is positioning Krak. Crypto exchanges historically chased deposit growth through trading fees and sign-up promotions. Krak is treating the salary deposit as the durable customer relationship — the same anchor incumbent banks have always relied on — and pricing it accordingly.
For users in Latvia, Greece, Croatia, and Hungary, the practical question is simple: does the account replace a primary salary account, or supplement an existing one? Given the IBAN works for payroll, the rewards are non-trivial, and setup takes minutes, the answer for many will probably be both — at least until the local bank starts matching.