BNY explores partnership with Payward on crypto infrastructure

Custody giant BNY is exploring a wide-ranging partnership with Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, that could span digital-asset custody, trading, payments and wealth management. The talks, reported by two people familiar with the matter, would mark one of the clearest signals yet that a top-tier U.S. bank is willing to plug directly into crypto-native infrastructure rather than build it alone.

• BNY is in early talks with Payward over infrastructure spanning crypto, custody, trading, payments and wealth management.
• Nasdaq Ventures invested $100 million in Payward last month at a $21 billion valuation.
• Payward has pushed its planned IPO to the second quarter of 2027 at the earliest.

• $100M Nasdaq Ventures investment in Payward announced last month
• $21B valuation Nasdaq assigned Payward in that same funding round
• $550M maximum price Payward agreed to pay for Bitnomial in April
• $600M deal Payward struck for stablecoin-payments firm Reap

BNY, formerly Bank of New York Mellon, is discussing a broad financial-infrastructure arrangement with Payward, the Wyoming-based parent of Kraken, according to CoinDesk reported by two people familiar with the matter. The potential deal could cover crypto products, custody, wealth management, trading, payments and infrastructure, delivered through Payward Services, the company’s business-to-business platform for banks, exchanges and asset managers. Discussions are ongoing and there is no guarantee a formal agreement will result.

Talks could mirror Payward’s Nasdaq infrastructure arrangement

One person familiar with the matter said elements of a BNY deal could resemble the infrastructure component of Payward’s recent agreement with Nasdaq. Both sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private.

That Nasdaq relationship gives the talks scale and precedent. Nasdaq Ventures agreed last month to invest $100 million in Payward at a $21 billion valuation, while the two companies expanded work on tokenized equities. Under that deal, Nasdaq and Payward will keep building operational and commercial infrastructure for Nasdaq Equity Tokens, and Payward will adopt Nasdaq’s market-surveillance technology across its crypto, equities, tokenized-equities, futures and options venues.

Nasdaq and Payward expect to launch Nasdaq Equity Tokens in the second quarter of 2027, connecting Nasdaq’s regulated markets with Payward’s xStocks ecosystem. The design is meant to preserve shareholder rights, regulatory protections and issuer control. A BNY arrangement built along similar lines would extend that infrastructure logic from capital markets into custody, payments and wealth services.

BNY’s tokenized deposit launch gives the talks a concrete reference point

Separate from the Payward discussions, BNY has already moved to tokenize client cash. The bank’s announcement on digital cash capabilities describes an on-chain mirrored representation of client deposit balances on its Digital Assets platform, running on a private, permissioned blockchain governed by the bank’s existing risk and compliance frameworks. Client balances still sit on BNY’s traditional systems for regulatory and reporting purposes, and the initial use cases target collateral and margin workflows.

Carolyn Weinberg, BNY’s chief product and innovation officer, framed the launch as part of a shift toward always-on markets.

“As institutional markets move toward always on operating models, BNY is committed to innovating and helping define how cash moves across the modern financial system. Tokenized deposits provide us with the opportunity to extend our trusted bank deposits onto digital rails.”

Carolyn Weinberg, Chief Product and Innovation Officer, BNY

Early participants in that tokenized-deposit effort include Anchorage Digital, Baillie Gifford, Circle, Citadel Securities, Digital Asset, DRW Holdings, Galaxy, ICE, Invesco and Nodal Clear, according to the same BNY announcement. What the bank’s statement does not address is whether, or how, that infrastructure would connect to a separate commercial arrangement with Payward, since the two efforts have so far been described independently.

Payward’s expansion outruns its delayed IPO

Payward’s push into banking-grade infrastructure comes alongside an acquisition spree. The company agreed in April to buy U.S. crypto derivatives firm Bitnomial for as much as $550 million, then followed with a $600 million deal for stablecoin-payments company Reap. Both transactions trailed Payward’s roughly $1.5 billion purchase of retail futures platform NinjaTrader in 2025, a deal approximately 2.7 times the size of the Bitnomial agreement.

That buildout continues even as Payward’s public-market ambitions slip. CoinDesk reported last month that the company had pushed its planned initial public offering to the second quarter of 2027 at the earliest, after shelving an earlier listing amid difficult market conditions.

The BlockWest read. The more interesting signal here is not Payward’s valuation, it is BNY’s willingness to route institutional cash, custody and payments through a crypto-native counterparty before any formal deal is signed. If talks convert into an agreement, banks that have treated Payward as a trading venue will have to start treating it as plumbing, a shift with implications for how custodians and asset managers vet counterparty risk on digital-asset rails.

Neither BNY nor Payward has confirmed the talks publicly, and there is no set timeline for an announcement or guarantee a deal is reached. The next concrete marker on Payward’s calendar remains the second quarter of 2027, when it expects both the Nasdaq Equity Tokens launch and, at the earliest, its own IPO.

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