Kvarn Capital Oy has received a MiCA CASP license from the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority, marking an important milestone in the company's strategy to build a safe, compliant and transparent investment platform in the Nordic region.
“Getting the CASP license is the result of over three years of targeted work by our team — and shows that innovation and regulation can go hand in hand,” says Joonas Järvinen, co-founder of Kvarn X. “Investments of the future are cross-asset, where traditional finance and crypto meet. With several EU licenses — CASP, PSP and MiFID II — Kvarn X and its affiliates are among the few fully authorised operators in the Nordic region, among only a few at EU level, and the only ones built for real scalability across the region.”
With the CASP approval, Kvarn Capital formally enters the MICA regime under the supervision of the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority.
With the CASP license, Kvarn X will offer crypto trading — including receiving and forwarding orders as well as order execution — as well as custody and transfers of crypto assets in line with MICA regulations. All associated payment services, both in fiat currency and stablecoins, are still handled under Kvarn's existing payment entity license (PSP license), so that the entire value chain from deposit to storage and transfer is covered within a regulated framework.
Along with the existing concessions -- CASP, PSP and MiFID II -- Kvarn X and its affiliates now have the necessary permits to build a platform that combines crypto assets with more traditional investment products. This structure mirrors previous plans to evolve from a pure-bred crypto brokerage house to a broader investment universe under MiFID II, while keeping the business firmly rooted in European financial regulation.
Following the approval, the Kvarn X platform is once again fully open for trading, with access to over 400 crypto assets and trading fees starting at 0.1 percent. The wide coverage of tokens and the low level of fees are key elements of Kvarn's Nordic strategy, and have previously been highlighted as key factors for scaling from the Finnish market to the rest of the Nordic region.
The licence is granted in a jurisdiction that has opted for one of the shortest transition periods (“grandfathering” periods) to MiCA in the EU, at six months, which has created pressure both on the market participants and the supervisory authority. When the transition period expired and the summer holidays started, only one MICA license had been granted in Finland, contributing to uncertainty in the market and increased attention on the processing of the applications. Now all the leading Finnish crypto exchanges have been granted a MICA license.
The MICA authorization in Finland underpins Kvarn X's plans to launch crypto trading in Sweden, Norway and Denmark in the second half of 2025, through the use of the passwords and adaptation to local framework conditions. In an earlier interview with Kaupr, CEO Martin Wichmann described a two-pronged strategy for rollout in the Nordic region: adapting the Kvarn X platform to each individual market, while building the company's local presence with people and activities in each country.
Kvarn stresses that the combination of CASP, PSP and MiFID II licences makes it possible to reconcile innovation with Nordic credibility and the EU level on investment protection, enabling customers to invest in a fully subject and prudential regulated environment. The company also expresses its thanks to partners, suppliers, regulators and its own team for their contributions to obtaining the CASP license and for driving the broader Nordic expansion strategy forward.
