Payward Puts Wells Fargo Talks on Its Bank Rails

Wells Fargo is in talks with Payward, Kraken’s parent, for crypto trading liquidity, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The bank holds roughly $2.3 trillion in assets. Both firms declined to comment, and the talks may not produce a deal.

The name on the door would still be Wells Fargo. The firm selling the routing is Payward, which has spent September and October plugging banks into Kraken Prime and carrying that stack toward a public listing no earlier than the second quarter of 2027.

Two People Say the Talks Are Real, and Unfinished

On October 7 those people, who had direct knowledge of the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private, said Wyoming-based Payward would supply liquidity for trading in crypto assets. Crypto exchanges already do this for banks: they open a path to venues, help fill orders, and let the bank keep the customer file. Coinbase Prime is the established version of that product. Kraken’s pitch is that a bank can plug into its own platform instead of building the stack from scratch.

No product launch has been filed. No 8-K has been filed. Eligible clients, asset classes, fees and a start date were not disclosed. Until both sides sign and choose to say so, the arrangement is a conversation.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The talks: Two people with direct knowledge said Payward would supply crypto trading liquidity to Wells Fargo, and both firms declined to comment.
• The model: Payward would handle routing and pricing through Kraken Prime while Wells Fargo kept the client relationship and the brand.
• The prior look: Wells Fargo already advised Nasdaq on its September investment in Payward, so the bank has seen the firm as an adviser, not only as a possible vendor.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• A signed deal: The people who described the talks said they are ongoing and may not result in an agreement.
• The product map: Assets, venues, fees, technology and a go-live date have not been set out in public.
• A filing: No 8-K or product notice has been posted that would confirm the arrangement.

Large U.S. banks that want crypto trading for clients are renting an exchange’s order routing rather than standing up a matching engine of their own. That is slower to build than a white-label feed, and it is the product Coinbase Prime already sells. Payward is bidding for the banks that have not locked that slot elsewhere.

What Wells Fargo Clients Would See in a Deal?

They would still log into Wells Fargo. Payward would sit behind each trade, routing crypto orders through Kraken Prime. The bank would keep the client file and the brand. No bitcoin would have to land on Wells Fargo’s own balance sheet, and the bank would not run a matching engine.

Kraken Prime, which Payward launched in 2025, is a prime broker in the ordinary sense of the word. A fund or a partner bank deals with one counterparty for execution, custody and financing, instead of prefunding a dozen venues and reconciling each book. A smart order router reads prices and depth across the venues Prime supports and sends each order to wherever it fills best. The exchange account gives a client that venue’s book. The prime broker gives a client a market.

Payward’s public write-up of the SoFi hookup is the cleanest picture of how that would look if Wells Fargo signed. SoFi members still buy and sell crypto inside the SoFi app. The orders now leave that app and hit Kraken Prime, which hunts for a price across venues rather than filling every ticket against a single book. Customers do not see the Kraken name on the screen. They see a fill.

WHAT A WELLS FARGO DEAL WOULD AND WOULD NOT BE

• Not a bitcoin pile: The talks are not a plan for Wells Fargo to buy bitcoin onto its own balance sheet.
• Not a custody mandate: Nothing disclosed so far hands Payward the bank’s safekeeping book.
• Not a Wells Fargo exchange: The bank would not have to run its own matching engine to offer the trades.
• An execution feed: Payward, through Kraken Prime, would route and price digital-asset trades behind the bank’s own channels.
• A client file that stays put: Wells Fargo would keep the relationship, the statements and the brand the customer already knows.

Scope is the hole. Wealth clients who already buy spot bitcoin ETFs are the obvious first group, but nobody on the record has said they are the group. Until a term sheet lands, the only honest description is the one the people around the talks gave: liquidity for crypto trading, if the deal happens at all.

SoFi Went Live First, Then Singapore Gulf Bank

On September 3, Payward and SoFi Technologies said they were linking banking, payments and digital-asset markets. Payward joined the SoFi Exchange Network, SoFi’s real-time dollar rails, and agreed to list SoFiUSD, SoFi Bank’s dollar token, on Kraken. SoFi, in the other direction, began routing digital-asset orders through Kraken Prime, with qualified custody described as a later step if the relationship grows. Kraken Prime clients also get SoFi’s Big Business Banking and SEN, which moves dollars in real time, 24 hours a day. SoFi is a nationally chartered bank with 15.8 million members.

On October 5, Payward connected Kraken to SGB Net, the real-time clearing network at Singapore Gulf Bank. Settlement starts in U.S. dollars and only for selected institutional clients in Asia and the Gulf. Singapore Gulf Bank, in turn, will price its clients’ digital-asset trades through Kraken Prime. The shape matches the SoFi deal: the bank opens a 24-hour dollar pipe, and Payward opens a liquidity pipe.

PAYWARD’S BANK AND EXCHANGE PIPELINE

Two of those names are live. Two are conversations. Nasdaq is an investor and a product partner, not a retail bank sending order flow. Treating Wells Fargo as a fourth live mandate would be getting ahead of the facts.

BNY Is Shopping More Than a Liquidity Line

On October 2, two people familiar with those discussions said BNY, the custody and asset-servicing bank formerly known as Bank of New York Mellon, was talking to Payward about a much wider package. The list they described covered crypto products, custody, wealth management, trading, payments and other market plumbing. Both Payward and BNY declined to comment, and those talks also may not produce a deal.

The conversations run through Payward Services, a B2B platform for banks and brokers that packages trading, custody, payments and settlement as one hookup. One of the people said parts of the BNY discussion resemble the plumbing work in Payward’s Nasdaq agreement, which is about tokenized equities and always-on markets rather than a simple fill. If that is the shape, BNY is not shopping the same SKU Wells Fargo is shopping. Wells is described as a liquidity client. BNY is described as a possible infrastructure partner.

That split matters for anyone reading Wells Fargo as “banks are going into crypto.” Some banks want a hidden execution feed. Some want a broader build with a crypto-native firm. Payward is selling both, from the same shop.

Nasdaq’s $100 Million Came With Wells Fargo in the Room

On September 10, Nasdaq said Nasdaq Ventures had agreed to invest $100 million in Payward, to keep work going on Nasdaq Equity Tokens, and to put Nasdaq’s market-surveillance tools across Payward’s crypto, equities, tokenized-equities, futures and options venues. Nasdaq and Payward said they expect to launch those equity tokens in the second quarter of 2027. People familiar with the investment put the valuation at $21 billion; Nasdaq’s own release did not state a valuation.

Wells Fargo served as Nasdaq’s exclusive capital markets advisor on the deal. The bank that is now asking Payward for a liquidity line spent September on the other side of the table, walking Nasdaq through a check. That is not proof a trading mandate will follow. It is proof Wells Fargo has already had a close look at Payward’s books, its tokenized-equity plans, and the surveillance package Nasdaq is installing.

More than $2 trillion of stock trades run through the U.S. clearing system every day. Buys and sells net down by about 98 percent, and the clearing house holds $10 billion to $20 billion of collateral against what is left while it waits a day to settle. Cutting that wait from two days to one in 2024 released $3 billion. Onchain settlement removes the wait. The next phase of the collaboration is planned to advance Nasdaq Equity Tokens onto rails that do not close, with shareholder rights intact.

Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward, Nasdaq announcement, September 10, 2026

Tal Cohen, Nasdaq’s president, said the expanded relationship reflects a view that Payward can help move capital and assets while keeping the trust and integrity that capital formation needs. Payward will adopt Nasdaq’s surveillance technology across those venues. For a bank still deciding whether to rent Kraken Prime, that is a compliance story as much as a trading story.

Wells Fargo Already Holds 24 Million IBIT Shares

A liquidity mandate would not be Wells Fargo’s first crypto exposure. It would be a shift from paper it already files to a live execution feed. The bank has backed compliance firm Elliptic and trading-tech firm Talos, and it has joined a consortium working on a dollar stablecoin. It already offers spot bitcoin ETFs to eligible wealth clients. The missing piece is the matching and routing layer for client crypto trades.

WELLS FARGO’S IBIT POSITION

• The holding: Trackers of the bank’s Q2 2026 13F, filed August 14, list 24,396,222 iShares Bitcoin Trust shares worth $812 million.
• The change: That stake was 275% higher than the prior quarter, after Wells Fargo added IBIT through the three months ended June 30.
• The weight: The position was about 0.13% of the disclosed 13F book and ranked No. 146 in that portfolio.
• The history: Wells Fargo first reported an IBIT line in Q2 2024 and has now shown it for nine quarters.

ETF shares are a fund position. A Kraken Prime hookup would be a client channel. One can sit on a 13F without the other ever going live, which is why the October 7 talks still have to clear a term sheet, a risk committee and, if the bank judges it material, a filing.

Payward Needs Bank Mandates Before a 2027 Listing

Payward filed a confidential S-1 in November 2025, paused the listing in March 2026, and has since been described as targeting a debut no earlier than the second quarter of 2027. That is the same quarter Nasdaq and Payward have put on Nasdaq Equity Tokens. A listing that late needs a story about more than retail spot volume. Bank rails, tokenized equities, and a surveillance badge from Nasdaq are that story.

Kraken’s own SoFi note already listed the pattern: Deutsche Börse on FX and derivatives plumbing, Nasdaq on an xStocks-powered equity-token gateway, Franklin Templeton on tokenized funds, and SoFi as the retail-bank distribution line. SGB extends the same template into Asia and the Gulf. BNY would be the custody-bank line if those talks close. Wells Fargo would be the largest U.S. balance-sheet name on the liquidity side if those talks close.

If. SoFi and SGB are signed. BNY and Wells Fargo are not. Payward can put two live banks and two conversations on a slide; it cannot put Wells Fargo’s brand on Kraken Prime until both sides agree and choose to say so. The people who described the Wells Fargo talks were careful on that point, and the empty docket of 8-Ks agrees with them.

The bank that walked Nasdaq’s $100 million into Payward is now asking whether to rent the same firm’s routing for its own clients. That is the commercial question still open as of October 7, and it is Payward’s question as much as Wells Fargo’s.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis for information only. It is not investment advice, a solicitation to buy or sell crypto, securities or bank products, or a recommendation of any liquidity arrangement, ETF or token. Readers should consult a licensed financial adviser and, where relevant, their own bank or broker before acting on any product or market described here. Share counts, deal status, valuations and product dates reflect the filings, company statements and people familiar with the talks cited above and can change if a deal is signed, dropped or restated.