Wells Fargo reportedly in talks with Kraken parent Payward over crypto trading liquidity

Overview

Wells Fargo is reportedly in talks with Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, about supplying crypto trading liquidity to the bank, according to CoinDesk. This would be a significant development for Payward, which has been growing its financial services offerings and has recently announced partnerships with SoFi and BNY Mellon.

Background

Payward has been reshaping itself from a crypto exchange into a broader financial services provider. The company offers financial institutions, exchanges, and asset managers access to crypto trading liquidity, custody, payments, and settlement infrastructure. Its business-to-business arm, Payward Services, has been gaining traction, with $508 million in adjusted revenue for Q2 2026 and 6.6 million funded accounts.

Implications

For Payward, a Wells Fargo agreement would be a credibility multiplier. Landing SoFi, BNY Mellon, and Wells Fargo in one season would give the company a roster that looks less like a crypto exchange's client list and more like a core supplier to banking. For Wells Fargo, outsourcing liquidity would be a lower-risk way to test crypto demand among its clients. The bank would avoid building trading infrastructure internally, though it would take on dependence on an outside counterparty.

Next Steps

Several things are worth tracking from here. The first is whether Wells Fargo or Payward formally confirms the discussions, and on what terms. The second is the status of the BNY Mellon talks, which cover a wider range of services than liquidity alone. The third is how the SoFi integration performs in practice. Finally, watch Payward's next quarterly report, as the B2B push should eventually show up in how revenue is composed after the Q2 2026 numbers showed 17% growth in adjusted revenue.