Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, has formally applied for a national trust company charter with the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the company announced Friday. The move aims to create Payward National Trust Company (PNTC), a federally regulated entity dedicated to digital asset custody and fiduciary services for institutional clients.
If approved, PNTC would operate under OCC oversight, providing bank-level custody protections that go beyond Kraken’s existing offerings. "A national trust company provides the certainty institutions require and establishes the infrastructure to build the next generation of custody," said Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward and Kraken.
The application is part of a broader multi-charter banking strategy that already includes Kraken Financial, the Wyoming-chartered special purpose depository institution (SPDI) that received a Federal Reserve master account in 2020, granting direct access to the U.S. payments system. Sethi described the Wyoming SPDI and the prospective OCC trust as "complementary pillars" for a digitally native financial system.
Payward’s push for a federal charter comes amid a wave of crypto firms securing traditional banking licenses under a more industry-friendly regulatory climate. Recent OCC approvals include conditional charters for Coinbase, Circle, Ripple, BitGo, Paxos Trust Company, and Fidelity Digital Assets. Comptroller Jonathan V. Gould has welcomed new entrants, saying they "ensure a dynamic, competitive and diverse banking system."
The OCC filing follows a string of major acquisitions by Payward as it gears up for an IPO. The company acquired retail futures platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion in 2025, agreed to buy crypto derivatives exchange Bitnomial for up to $550 million securing CFTC licenses, and just this week struck a $600 million deal for Hong Kong-based payments firm Reap Technologies to expand stablecoin-powered cross-border services in Asia.
