Payward, Franklin Templeton to Tokenize Equities and Funds

Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, and asset manager Franklin Templeton said Tuesday they will tokenize equities and yield products on blockchain networks and integrate Franklin Templeton’s BENJI tokenized money-market funds into Kraken’s platform for institutional clients.

Under the agreement, the firms will work on tokenized equities, qualified custody solutions and actively managed yield products. Kraken will offer direct access to institutional crypto liquidity through its over-the-counter and prime services. Payward said some tokenized offerings will be available to institutional investors and, in certain jurisdictions, to retail Kraken users.

Kraken plans to add BENJI-a suite of Franklin Templeton tokenized money-market funds-so the funds can be used as collateral or cash-management instruments for institutional trading clients seeking on-chain alternatives to traditional treasury operations. The integration is intended to let institutions move short-term instruments on-chain while using Kraken’s custody and liquidity tools.

Payward will use its xStocks framework, which the company says has processed more than $30 billion in volume since launching last year, to explore placing actively managed investments on-chain with Franklin Templeton. The firms said the effort aims to make strategies from a large traditional asset manager tradable on blockchain rails.

Franklin Templeton has expanded its digital finance activity, recently launching a dedicated cryptocurrency division, Franklin Crypto, and announcing a planned acquisition of crypto investment firm 250 Digital. The collaboration with Payward is part of a broader industry effort by asset managers to test tokenization while maintaining institutional custody and compliance structures.

Arjun Sethi, Payward and Kraken co-CEO, said in a statement: “Payward and Franklin Templeton are building toward a model of finance where the distinction between traditional assets and digital infrastructure no longer holds. The convergence between these two worlds is only going to deepen, and what collaborations like this one unlock is a new class of products that wouldn’t have been possible even three years ago: assets that carry the credibility of multi-decade managers and the programmability of digital infrastructure.”

Sandy Kaul, head of digital assets and innovation at Franklin Templeton, said in a statement that the firms plan to expand the utility of BENJI and explore additional tokenized products to serve both digital-native and institutional customers with on-chain cash management and trading solutions.