Payward, the parent company of the Kraken crypto exchange, is joining forces with Franklin Templeton, the global investment management firm, to accelerate the adoption of tokenized investments and build a new generation of onchain financial products, according to a Tuesday press release.
The collaboration brings together Franklin Templeton’s global investment management and tokenization capabilities with Payward’s crypto trading, custody, and infrastructure stack. The scope includes tokenized equities, qualified custody services, yield-generating products, and institutional crypto liquidity access via Kraken’s OTC and Prime desks.
“Payward and Franklin Templeton are building toward a model of finance where the distinction between traditional assets and digital infrastructure no longer holds,” Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward and Kraken, said in a statement, noting that the trend is likely to deepen over time and collaborations like this may help create new financial instruments.
These products would bring together the established trust of long-standing asset managers with the adaptability of blockchain-based technology, he added.
Tokenization forms the foundation of the effort. Payward’s xStocks framework, which has processed over $30 billion in volume since its 2025 launch, will be extended to support actively managed onchain investment strategies developed with Franklin Templeton.
The collaboration will introduce tokenized yield products designed for both institutional and eligible retail users, focused on transparency and programmability.
Kraken plans to integrate BENJI, Franklin Templeton’s tokenized money market funds, to enhance utility and capital efficiency across digital asset markets and institutional workflows. The key objective is to improve how functional onchain assets are for all types of market participants once they are in use, according to Sandy Kaul, Head of Digital Assets & Innovation at Franklin Templeton.
“By expanding the utility of BENJI and exploring new tokenized products, our work with Payward reflects the growing need to serve both digital-native and institutional customers with solutions built for how capital increasingly moves onchain,” Kaul stated.