BNY in talks with Kraken parent Payward over digital asset infrastructure partnership

Custody banking giant BNY is in talks with Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, over a broad financial-infrastructure partnership. The potential deal, which could cover custody, trading, and payments, aligns with Payward's strategy to connect its digital-asset operations with traditional finance. This follows Payward's recent $100 million deal with Nasdaq to develop tokenized equities, as well as major acquisitions like Bitnomial and Reap.

BNY and Payward partnership talks

• ▪Discussions between BNY and Payward are ongoing with no guarantee of an agreement, and both companies declined to comment on these discussions
• ▪BNY is in talks with Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, over a broad financial-infrastructure partnership spanning digital assets and traditional market infrastructure

BNY institutional services and development

• ▪BNY provides custody, asset servicing, clearing, and wealth-management services to institutional clients
• ▪BNY has been developing tokenized deposits designed to support near-real-time onchain settlement between institutional market participants

Payward's financial integration

• ▪Payward said in March 2026 that its xStocks infrastructure had surpassed $25 billion in transaction volume, with more than $4 billion settled onchain
• ▪Payward announced an agreement with SoFi in September 2026 covering banking, payments, liquidity, and digital assets, including access to Kraken Prime and SoFi's real-time settlement network

Payward acquisitions

• ▪Payward agreed in April 2026 to acquire U.S. crypto derivatives firm Bitnomial for up to $550 million
• ▪Payward agreed to a $600 million acquisition of stablecoin-payments company Reap, following Payward's approximately $1.5 billion acquisition of retail futures platform NinjaTrader in 2025

Debatable claims

• ▪Onchain settlement of traditional financial assets does more harm than good
• ▪Integrating cryptocurrency and traditional banking under a single institution threatens systemic financial stability
• ▪Custody banks are the appropriate institutions to safeguard digital assets