Overview
- Payward, Kraken’s parent, filed with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Friday to create Payward National Trust Company for regulated digital‑asset custody, and the application is now under review.
- A national trust company focuses on fiduciary custody under OCC supervision and does not offer deposit accounts or make traditional consumer loans.
- The move complements Kraken Financial’s Wyoming SPDI charter and its March Federal Reserve master account, which gives direct access to U.S. payment rails.
- Payward has lined up more than $2.6 billion in deals over the past year, including NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion, Bitnomial for up to $550 million, and Reap Technologies for $600 million to build trading, derivatives, and payments capabilities.
- The filing comes as the OCC advances similar trust charters for firms like Coinbase, Ripple, BitGo, Circle, Fidelity, and Paxos, while some banking groups warn the approach could strain oversight and blur lines with traditional banks.