Wells Fargo is reportedly in talks with Payward, the parent company of Kraken, over a possible deal that could give the U.S. banking giant access to liquidity for cryptocurrency trading.
According to an Oct. 7 report by CoinDesk, Payward could provide liquidity and trading infrastructure for Wells Fargo’s digital asset business.
The talks are still ongoing, and there is no guarantee that the two companies will reach an agreement. Neither Wells Fargo nor Payward confirmed the discussions.
The companies have also not disclosed which cryptocurrencies could be supported, who would have access to the service or how the potential arrangement would work.
Under a possible deal, Payward could provide the market access and execution infrastructure needed to complete crypto trades without Wells Fargo having to operate its own cryptocurrency exchange.
Payward already provides similar services to financial institutions through its institutional infrastructure business. Banks can keep their own customer-facing platforms while Payward handles areas such as trade execution, custody, compliance and settlement.
The reported Wells Fargo talks have not been directly connected to a specific Payward product, so the exact structure remains unclear.
The discussions come as Wells Fargo continues developing its digital asset strategy. The bank has been working on digital assets alongside payments and liquidity services and already provides clients with research and educational material related to cryptocurrencies.
Payward is also in separate discussions with another major U.S. bank, BNY.
The potential BNY partnership could cover crypto products, custody, wealth management, trading, payments and other financial services. Those talks also remain unfinished, with no agreement or launch date announced.
Payward launched its enterprise infrastructure unit in March to help banks, fintech companies and other financial firms add crypto trading, tokenized assets, stablecoin payments, staking and funding services without building the technology themselves.
The platform currently supports crypto execution across more than 600 assets and offers custody and compliance tools. Payward says institutional clients can often reach their first transactions within about 90 days after signing an agreement, although that does not mean Wells Fargo would follow the same timeline.
Wells Fargo also has a recent connection with Payward through Nasdaq.
Nasdaq announced in September that its venture arm had agreed to invest $100 million in Payward. The investment also expanded cooperation between the companies around tokenized equities and market-surveillance technology.
Wells Fargo acted as Nasdaq’s exclusive capital markets adviser for the transaction.
That means the bank advised Nasdaq on a major investment in Payward shortly before reports emerged that Wells Fargo itself was discussing a possible crypto liquidity arrangement with the company.
Nasdaq and Payward are also working on Nasdaq Equity Tokens, or NETs, with a planned launch in the second quarter of 2027. The project is designed to bring tokenized equities into a regulated market structure.
Payward has been expanding well beyond the traditional Kraken exchange business during 2026.
The company reported $508 million in adjusted revenue for the second quarter, while its platforms had 6.6 million funded accounts holding around $40 billion in assets.
Payward is also building its own regulated custody infrastructure. In May, the company applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish Payward National Trust Company.
If approved, the proposed trust company would focus mainly on federally supervised digital asset custody for institutional and individual customers. It would not operate as a traditional bank taking deposits or making standard loans.
Payward has also expanded into regulated derivatives through its acquisition of Bitnomial, which added a U.S. derivatives exchange, clearing organization and futures commission merchant regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The company is therefore building a broader financial infrastructure business that covers crypto trading, liquidity, custody, derivatives, payments and tokenized assets.
For Wells Fargo, however, the reported arrangement is still only under discussion. No final agreement, launch date, supported cryptocurrencies or commercial terms have been announced.
If the deal moves forward, it would give Wells Fargo another way to access cryptocurrency markets through Payward’s existing institutional infrastructure while allowing the bank to maintain its own customer-facing financial services.
