Kraken’s parent, Payward, is reportedly discussing a crypto infrastructure deal with BNY that could expand the services available to the bank’s institutional clients.
Key Takeaways
- BNY and Payward remain in reported talks.
- Kraken’s parent is expanding its infrastructure business.
- BNY already offers institutional digital-asset custody services.
CoinDesk reported, citing two people familiar with the matter, that the discussions could cover custody, trading, payments, wealth management and digital-asset infrastructure. Both companies declined to comment, and there is no guarantee they will reach an agreement.
The talks fit Payward’s effort to sell the systems behind Kraken to other financial institutions. Those institutions could use its services while retaining their own customer relationships, giving Payward a way to reach clients who might never open a Kraken account. For BNY, which already offers digital-asset custody, a deal could expand what clients can do with the assets it helps them hold.
Kraken’s parent is building a business behind other brands
Payward introduced Payward Services on March 11, offering businesses access to trading, custody, stablecoin payments and funding through one integration. The platform packages capabilities used within its own operations for banks, brokerages and payment providers to incorporate into their products.
A financial institution using that platform would not have to develop every component itself. It could choose the services it needs and keep managing the relationship with its clients. For Payward, this creates opportunities to earn business by handling transactions and supplying technology through another company’s offering.
Its relationship with Nasdaq shows how that strategy is developing. In a September 10 announcement, Nasdaq said its venture arm had agreed to invest $100 million in Payward. The companies also expanded their work on tokenized equities and announced an agreement for Payward to adopt Nasdaq’s market-surveillance technology across its trading venues.
The Nasdaq arrangement involves investment and technology supplied by both sides. It demonstrates that Payward can pursue broader institutional relationships, although it does not establish the terms of any future BNY deal.
BNY would be adding to an existing crypto business
BNY’s digital-asset custody platform already uses segregated wallets and connects digital and traditional holdings for accounting and servicing. A potential partnership would therefore need to complement capabilities the bank has already built.
One possible use of outside infrastructure would be to connect custody more closely with trading or payments. For an asset manager, that could reduce the number of providers and separate processes involved in buying an asset and moving it into safekeeping. The reported discussions leave the division of those responsibilities open.
What happens after a client places an order
To understand why those connections matter, consider a hypothetical asset manager buying crypto through its existing financial-services provider. The purchase needs more than a successful trade: the payment must arrive, the asset must reach the correct custody account and the manager’s records must reflect the new holding.
Different companies can handle those steps. Connecting them reliably is part of the work an infrastructure provider sells.
These functions explain how a service could operate; they are not an agreed BNY–Payward arrangement. For the asset manager, the benefit would be fewer manual transfers or discrepancies to resolve between providers. Whether a partnership delivers that benefit depends on how well the companies’ systems work together.
Clients would still need to know who holds their assets
Making the process easier can also make the companies behind it less visible. Clients would still need terms identifying the legal custodian, who authorizes withdrawals and which provider handles a failed or delayed transaction.
Payward’s platform announcement identifies different custody entities depending on the service and jurisdiction. BNY’s custody page, meanwhile, states that digital assets are not bank deposits and are not FDIC-insured. Using a bank’s interface therefore does not give a crypto holding the same protections as money in a deposit account.
Depending on an outside supplier also introduces operational questions. A service interruption could affect clients even when their bank’s own systems remain available, making recovery procedures and communication between providers important parts of the design.
An announced agreement would need to explain the services, eligible clients and responsibilities before its practical value could be assessed. Payward has already set out its ambition to supply financial institutions. The significance of a BNY deal would lie in whether it makes crypto transactions easier to manage without leaving clients uncertain about who is accountable for their assets.
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coindoo and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets – crypto first, then everything else.
It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn’t fully understand it – so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can’t properly understand one without the other.
What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it’s happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline – price up, price down, here’s a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn?
He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University – not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That’s probably why he hasn’t stopped.
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