SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ: SOFI) and Payward, the parent of the Kraken digital asset platform, have agreed to tie SoFi’s banking rails to Kraken’s market infrastructure.
The arrangement is meant to tighten the link between regulated dollar settlement and always-on crypto trading.Under the deal, Payward will join the SoFi Exchange Network, or SEN, SoFi’s real-time settlement system for enterprise clients.
That gives Kraken’s institutional and business customers a path to clear and move U.S. dollars around the clock, rather than waiting for conventional banking cutoffs.
The same rails will let participants manage liquidity across both firms’ networks at any hour.
Payward will also list SoFiUSD on Kraken.
The token is issued by SoFi Bank, redeemable one-for-one into dollars, and is intended to pair blockchain transfer speed with the oversight of a nationally chartered bank.
Listing it on Kraken puts the stablecoin in front of the exchange’s retail, professional, and institutional users.In the other direction, SoFi will tap Kraken Prime as an extra source of digital asset liquidity for crypto trades already available inside the SoFi app.
Kraken Prime uses smart order routing that compares prices and depth across venues in real time and sends each order where it is most likely to fill well.
SoFi has said that should improve execution for members who already buy and sell crypto in the same app they use for banking and payroll. Qualified custody may be added later as the relationship grows.
SoFi launched Big Business Banking in April to combine enterprise banking with digital asset services.
Officials at both companies present the Payward agreement as a way to put that model to work at larger scale and as a base for possible later work in payments, treasury, lending, and other digital asset products.
SoFi CEO Anthony Noto argued that markets no longer pause when traditional banks close, and that infrastructure should keep pace.
He described SoFi’s goal as building trusted rails for an always-on economy that can eventually move money across networks and borders with less delay and fragmentation.
Payward Co-CEO David Ripley said money and markets are merging into a new paradigm and that the pipes underneath need to catch up.
He noted that many people will make their first crypto purchase inside an app they already use for their paycheck, and that those users should be connected to deep, scalable markets.
The partnership is one more example of banks and crypto platforms plugging into each other’s plumbing.
SoFi brings a federally regulated bank, a 24/7 dollar settlement network, and a large retail membership that already trades crypto in-app.
Payward brings Kraken’s liquidity, prime-brokerage execution, and a multi-asset trading venue.
Together they aim to let dollars and digital assets move with less friction between banking hours and market hours.
Whether the link produces lasting volume in SoFiUSD, tighter spreads for SoFi users, or broader 24/7 institutional settlement will depend on how quickly the technical and operational integration is completed and how clients actually use the new rails.