The American bank Wells Fargo is in talks with Payward, the parent company of the Kraken exchange, to provide liquidity for digital asset trading. This was reported by CoinDesk, citing two sources. Payward is based in Wyoming. The negotiations are not finalized, and neither party has announced an agreement. Both companies declined to comment, and details have not been disclosed.
Wells Fargo manages assets of about $2.3 trillion. In the event of a deal, Payward would provide market access and execution infrastructure for client and institutional orders, without the need for the bank to launch its own crypto exchange. Payward already sells a similar model to other financial companies: banks offer trading through their interfaces, while Payward handles execution, custody, and compliance. The negotiations are not publicly tied to a specific Payward Services product.
The companies' relationship is not new. On September 10, Nasdaq announced it would invest $100 million in Payward at a valuation of about $21 billion, expanding cooperation on tokenized stocks and market surveillance. Wells Fargo acted as Nasdaq's exclusive capital markets advisor. Nasdaq and Payward are working on the Nasdaq Equity Tokens system, set to launch in the second quarter of 2027.
Wells Fargo disclosed more than 6.5 million shares of IBIT and nearly 726,000 shares of Strategy, supports Elliptic and Talos, joined a consortium on a dollar stablecoin, and hired former Citi banker Mark Gracia. Payward is expanding banking partnerships: in October, it integrated SGB Net from Singapore Gulf Bank, SoFi has been working since early September, and BNY is in talks with Payward on partnerships in crypto products, custody, wealth management, trading, and payments. On October 6, xStocks added more than 1,100 tokenized American stocks to Monad, and Bitnomial will launch regulated perpetual futures for American clients. In May, Payward applied to create Payward National Trust Company. As of the second quarter: $508 million in adjusted revenue, 6.6 million accounts, about $40 billion in assets.
This material is prepared solely for informational purposes and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation.