Kraken Parent Payward Seeks OCC National Trust Charter

Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, filed an application with the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on May 8, 2026, seeking a national trust company charter to establish Payward National Trust Company to provide fiduciary custody and other services primarily for digital assets.

The company said the charter, if approved, would allow it to custody cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets under a federal trust framework and offer related fiduciary services to clients.

The filing follows recent OCC approvals for other digital-asset firms, including Coinbase, and December charters granted to Ripple Labs, BitGo, Circle, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos.

Payward said the application would build on Kraken’s existing U.S. operations, including a Special Purpose Depository Institution it set up in Wyoming through Kraken Financial and a Federal Reserve master account that provides access to the U.S. payments system.

Payward has expanded its U.S. footprint through acquisitions and partnerships, including the purchase of derivatives platform Bitnomial and an agreement to buy payments firm Reap. The company also announced a collaboration with MoneyGram.

Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi described the charter as giving institutions the ‘certainty’ they require and helping to establish infrastructure for the ‘next generation of custody.’

The OCC is led by Jonathan Gould, President Donald Trump’s nominee. The regulator’s approvals of crypto-related trust charters have drawn public scrutiny, including attention to an application from World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm co-founded by Donald Trump and two of his sons.

In May, Payward indicated it was roughly 80% ready for an initial public offering in the U.S. and targeted a possible listing by 2027; no formal IPO timetable has been filed with regulators.

The OCC does not set a fixed approval timetable. The agency reviews applications to determine whether proposed national trust entities meet federal standards for fiduciary services, governance, and risk controls. If approved, Payward National Trust Company would join a small group of digital-asset firms operating under federal trust charters with the authority to custody assets and provide trust services.