Kraken Parent Payward Partners Franklin Templeton To Launch Tokenized Securities

Payward, the parent company behind crypto exchange Kraken, has joined forces with global asset manager Franklin Templeton. This alliance focuses on helping the firm increase the adoption of tokenized financial products in blockchain-centric markets. For this purpose, they are eyeing to launch several tokenized assets.

Kraken’s Parent Company Partners Franklin Templeton

For further context, the partnership is designed to leverage traditional investment products with digital asset infrastructure. The companies aim to benefit from the surging institutional demand for onchain finance.

The project will bring together Franklin Templeton’s asset management expertise and Payward’s crypto exchange trading, custody, and blockchain solutions. The firms will collaborate on multiple fronts. These include tokenized equities, digital custody solutions, institutional liquidity access, and yield-generating investment products.

Moreover, one of the primary components of the deal is Payward’s xStocks framework. For context, xStocks is a tokenized equities platform that the company noted has seen over $30 billion in trading volume since its launch in 2025. In the collaboration, the firms will look at bringing actively managed investment strategies to the blockchain, which will then be able to be sold in tokenized form.

The companies also plan to create tokenized yield-focused products for institutional investors, as well as, if regulations permit, the broader customer base of Kraken. Per the firms, the products will supply “transparency, versatility, and programmability” by means of blockchain infrastructure.

What Do Executives Say?

Arjun Sethi, co-chief executive of Payward and Kraken said that “Payward and Franklin Templeton are building toward a model of finance where the distinction between traditional assets and digital infrastructure no longer holds.” It can also allow “a new class of products” that will have “digital-native” features and known assets management, he added.

In addition, Kraken will try to integrate BENJI, the tokenized money market fund platform of Franklin Templeton, on the institutional side. The crypto exchange will use it for the purposes of capital efficiency and liquidity management. It marks a major feat as the platform recently also entered the derivatives market after acquiring Bitnomial.

“The focus should be on making onchain assets more functional for the full range of market participants once they are there,” said Sandy Kaul, head of digital assets and innovation at Franklin Templeton.