Buy-side licence M&A · Regulated verticals
Cadena Brokers connects acquirers with pre-vetted licensed entities — EU and UK e-money and payment institutions at the core, plus extended coverage across crypto (CASP / VASP), money services (MSB & MSO), gaming, and forex. Compliance verified. Banking lines intact. Expedited closings on every mandate.
What we broker · core mandate
Our deepest book sits across two licence families — e-money and payment — each with a full and a small-scope tier, across the European Union and the United Kingdom. Every entity in our book has been pre-audited for regulatory standing, banking access, and ownership-transfer feasibility. Mandates beyond this scope are covered on our extended coverage page.
Electronic Money Institution / UK Authorised EMI
Full e-money issuance & redemption authority across the EEA, or FCA-authorised AEMI in the UK. Suitable for issuance, multi-currency wallets, card programmes, IBAN provision, and payments-in / payments-out flows at scale.
Small Electronic Money Institution
A capped-volume e-money regime — lower regulatory capital, narrower scope — available in select EU member states (under the EMD2 national-option regime) and in the UK as a registered Small EMI. A viable staged route to a full EMI / AEMI later.
Payment Institution / UK Authorised PI
Authorised payment services under PSD2 (EU) or PSR 2017 (UK) — money remittance, account information, payment initiation, and acquiring. Suited to PSPs, PISPs, AISPs, and merchant acquirers expanding their European or UK footprint.
Small Payment Institution
A right-sized payment regime for narrower service scopes and lower transaction thresholds, available in most EU member states and as a Small PI registration in the UK. Lower regulatory capital, leaner acquisition path, and a clear track to step up to a full PI / API.
Looking for forex, gaming, crypto (MiCA-CASP / VASP), MSB-US, MSB-Canada, or HK-MSO mandates? See our extended coverage →
How it works
A buy-side mandate at Cadena is purpose-built. No split mandates, no double commissions, no surprises late in diligence. You retain full control over every gate.
You define the parameters: jurisdiction, license type, services in scope, banking requirements, headcount tolerance, and budget envelope. We translate that into a search mandate and confidentiality framework.
From our active inventory across EU 27 + UK, we present a shortlist of 2–5 entities that fit the brief. Each comes with a regulatory standing report, financial summary, and a clear reason it’s available.
Coordinated due diligence in a secure data room: regulatory file review, AML/KYC programme, banking continuity, capital adequacy, contractual liabilities. Share purchase structuring and escrow arrangements in parallel.
Signing, regulator change-of-control filings, share transfer, and a 90-day post-closing handover covering board changes, banking signatory updates, and operational continuity. The license never goes dark.
Why Cadena
We act for the acquirer. Always. No split mandate, no listing fee from sellers, no incentive to push a poor fit. Our compensation is aligned with your acquisition succeeding on your terms.
We focus on regulated-licence M&A only. Every entity in our book sits under a competent supervisor our regulatory affairs counsel knows — whether EU EMI/PI, UK FCA, FinCEN, FINTRAC, HK Customs & Excise, MGA, MFSA, or an offshore VASP authority.
Before an entity reaches your desk it has cleared a regulatory standing check, a banking-continuity check, and a litigation/sanctions review. You receive shortlists, not catalogues.
Diligence, regulatory pre-clearance, and signing run in parallel rather than serially. The licence doesn’t lapse, banking lines stay open, and customers are not disrupted — momentum is engineered into every mandate.
Client outcomes
We had a strict deadline to be live in the EEA before our Series B. The Maltese EMI Cadena sourced went from term sheet to MFSA approval without a single information request gap. Banking with Bank of Valletta carried over cleanly.
We acquired an Estonian SPI for our Nordic remittance business. Cadena handled the FIU change-of-control notification and confirmed banking continuity before we signed. Closing was inside our planning window.
What sold us was the diligence pack. Banking continuity confirmed before we signed. Sanctions review attached. Regulatory file complete. The compliance officer of the target stayed for the handover. Day one was uneventful — exactly what we wanted.
We had spoken to three other intermediaries. None of them could show us anything in Czech Republic that wasn’t already on a public marketplace. Cadena’s book was deeper than the rest combined and considerably more discreet.
The Cypriot SEMI cap fit our stablecoin issuance volumes for year one and gave us a clear path to step up to a full EMI when growth justified it. Cadena flagged that path before we even asked.
We needed an Italian PI to passport into Southern Europe. Cadena had three live options on our desk inside a week and walked us through Banca d’Italia’s change-of-control without us having to ask twice.
Building an EMI from zero in Lithuania would have meant a year and a half and a board pulled into regulatory hearings. We acquired a clean licensed shell from Cadena and were operational well within our launch window.
An Irish API was the cleanest route into UK and EEA card programmes for our group. Diligence ran in parallel with the Bank of Ireland onboarding, so day one trading was uninterrupted.
Tell us your target jurisdiction, license type, and timeline. We’ll come back within one business day with the most relevant entities currently in our book.
