Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, has made two significant institutional moves this week. On May 8, it filed an application with the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust charter, aiming to establish Payward National Trust Company, a federally regulated digital asset custody entity. In parallel, on May 12, Payward announced a strategic partnership with Franklin Templeton to develop a range of blockchain-based investment products for institutional investors.
The OCC filing marks the latest step in Payward’s regulated banking strategy. The proposed trust would offer bank-level custody to institutions requiring a federally qualified custodian, without taking deposits or making loans. Co-CEO Arjun Sethi emphasized that the OCC application and Kraken’s existing Wyoming Special Purpose Depository Institution (SPDI) are “complementary pillars” of that strategy. Notably, Kraken Financial, the Wyoming-chartered arm, secured a Federal Reserve master account in March 2026 — the first crypto-native firm to gain direct access to the Fed’s payment rails. Several other crypto firms, including Ripple, Circle, Paxos, BitGo, and Fidelity Digital Assets, have received conditional OCC national trust bank charters since December 2025, but only Anchorage Digital currently holds a full national charter.
The partnership with Franklin Templeton deepens Payward’s push into tokenized finance. The two firms plan to develop actively managed tokenized investment products — including tokenized yield products and tokenized equities — that could trade onchain and become available to institutional clients and, in some jurisdictions, Kraken’s retail users. Franklin Templeton will bring its BENJI suite of tokenized money market funds to Kraken’s platform, enabling blockchain-based treasury management and round-the-clock collateral movement. Payward’s own xStocks platform, which launched in 2025 and has processed over $30 billion in volume, will serve as a foundation for tokenized equities. The collaboration reflects a broader industry trend where BlackRock, Fidelity, and JPMorgan are also expanding tokenized offerings, especially Treasuries and money market funds.
These moves align with Payward’s aggressive expansion of regulated US infrastructure, following its acquisitions of Bitnomial (CFTC derivatives) and NinjaTrader (retail futures). The OCC approval process is expected to be thorough and multi-stage, but if granted, it would complete a vertically integrated platform spanning trading, clearing, and federally supervised custody of digital assets.
