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

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. Neither company has officially confirmed the discussions.

What Payward is actually selling

That is the pitch behind Payward Services, the company’s business-to-business arm. It offers financial institutions, exchanges and asset managers access to crypto trading liquidity, custody, payments and settlement infrastructure.

A busy autumn of bank courtship

On September 3, 2026, Payward and SoFi announced an agreement giving SoFi users access to Kraken Prime liquidity. The deal also features 24/7 dollar settlement within SoFi’s network, and SoFiUSD was listed on Kraken.

Then came BNY Mellon. As of October 2, 2026, the bank was in discussions with Payward over a potential partnership spanning custody, trading and wealth management services.

Wells Fargo is not a stranger to the Payward story either. The bank advised Nasdaq on its $100 million investment in Payward in September 2026, a deal that valued the crypto company at $21 billion.

From exchange to infrastructure provider

Payward has been reshaping itself from a crypto exchange into a broader financial services provider. The strategy centers on scaling prime brokerage and custody while leaning on recent acquisitions.

Those acquisitions include Bitnomial and NinjaTrader, which strengthen the company’s regulated derivatives and futures offerings.

The underlying business has been growing. Payward reported $508 million in adjusted revenue for Q2 2026, a 17% year-over-year increase, alongside 6.6 million funded accounts.

What this means

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.

Payward’s valuation of $21 billion, set by the Nasdaq investment, effectively prices in that ambition. Executing on it requires converting talks into signed agreements, and then keeping those agreements running smoothly at bank scale.

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.