BNY, the largest custody bank in the United States, is negotiating a broad financial-infrastructure partnership with Payward, the Wyoming-based parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The potential agreement could span crypto products, custody, wealth management, trading, payments and market infrastructure, the sources said. Those services would run through Payward Services, the company's business-to-business platform that supplies infrastructure to banks, exchanges and asset managers.

One source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are private, said elements of the proposed arrangement could resemble the infrastructure component of Payward's recent commercial agreement with Nasdaq. Discussions remain ongoing and may not result in a signed deal. Both Payward and BNY declined to comment.

For Payward, a BNY agreement would extend its strategy of wiring digital-asset operations into established financial institutions. For BNY, formerly Bank of New York Mellon, the partnership would deepen an existing institutional digital-asset push. The bank has been developing tokenized deposits designed to support near-real-time onchain settlement between institutional market participants, alongside its core custody, asset servicing, clearing and wealth-management businesses.

The talks follow Payward's deepening relationship with Nasdaq. Nasdaq Ventures agreed last month to invest $100 million in Payward at a $21 billion valuation while expanding collaboration on tokenized equities. Under that agreement, the two companies will continue building the operational and commercial infrastructure for Nasdaq Equity Tokens, which are expected to launch in the second quarter of 2027.

The Nasdaq initiative is intended to connect Nasdaq's regulated markets with Payward's xStocks ecosystem while preserving shareholder rights, regulatory protections and issuer control. As part of the arrangement, Payward will also deploy Nasdaq's market-surveillance technology across its crypto, equities, tokenized-equities, futures and options venues — an operational upgrade that signals how closely the exchange group intends to integrate Payward's trading infrastructure with regulated market standards.

Payward has spent the past two years assembling a diversified financial-services platform through acquisitions. The company agreed in April to acquire U.S. crypto derivatives firm Bitnomial for as much as $550 million, then followed with a $600 million deal for stablecoin-payments company Reap. Those transactions came after its roughly $1.5 billion acquisition of retail futures platform NinjaTrader in 2025.

The company's product range now covers spot crypto, derivatives, tokenized equities, custody, staking, payments and traditional securities. Payward Services extends that stack to banks, fintechs, brokerages and payment companies — the exact client segments a BNY partnership would target.

A deal with BNY would also land against the backdrop of Payward's revised listing timeline. CoinDesk reported last month that Payward has pushed its planned initial public offering to the second quarter of 2027 at the earliest, having previously shelved the listing amid difficult market conditions.

If negotiations conclude, the arrangement would pair the oldest custody bank in the U.S. with one of crypto's most acquisitive infrastructure builders — weeks before Nasdaq Equity Tokens are due to reach the market in the second quarter of 2027.