What Does The SoFi-Kraken Partnership Cover?
SoFi Technologies and Payward have agreed to connect SoFi’s banking infrastructure with Kraken’s digital-asset trading network, giving institutional clients another route to move U.S. dollars and manage liquidity outside traditional banking hours.
Under the agreement, Payward will join the SoFi Exchange Network, or SEN, a real-time settlement system designed for enterprise banking clients. Kraken will also list SoFiUSD, while SoFi will use Kraken Prime as an additional source of digital-asset liquidity for trades executed through the SoFi app.
The arrangement allows institutional users across the two networks to settle U.S. dollar transactions 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That can reduce one of the operational gaps between crypto markets, which trade continuously, and conventional banking systems that still depend heavily on business-day settlement windows.
“Money and markets are converging into a new financial paradigm, and the infrastructure underneath has to catch up,” Payward Co-CEO David Ripley said. “Millions of people will buy their first crypto asset inside the app they already use for their paycheck, and the infrastructure behind that experience should connect them to deep, liquid markets built to operate at scale.”
Why Does 24/7 Dollar Settlement Matter?
Real-time access to dollars has become an important part of crypto market infrastructure because exchanges, market makers and institutional trading desks operate continuously. A firm that needs to add collateral or rebalance liquidity on a weekend can face delays if its banking provider cannot move funds until the next business day.
Connecting Kraken to SoFi’s settlement network gives institutional clients another way to move dollars without waiting for conventional payment windows. It also gives SoFi a closer link to Kraken’s trading infrastructure at a time when banks and fintech companies are competing to provide payment rails for digital-asset businesses.
The addition of SoFiUSD creates another connection between the two companies. Listing the token on Kraken could expand its distribution and make it easier for clients to move between tokenized dollars and digital assets on the exchange.
For SoFi, Kraken Prime provides an additional liquidity source behind crypto transactions offered through its consumer application. Access to another institutional trading venue could improve execution capacity as activity increases, particularly during periods when liquidity is fragmented across exchanges and market makers.
Investor Takeaway
The deal is less about adding another crypto trading feature and more about connecting banking, stablecoins and institutional liquidity. If SoFi can make dollar settlement available around the clock while sourcing crypto liquidity from Kraken, it can reduce the operational gap between traditional banking and always-open digital-asset markets.
How Important Is Crypto To SoFi’s Business?
SoFi launched the Exchange Network in April alongside its Big Business Banking offering, bringing enterprise banking services and digital-asset operations under a more closely connected infrastructure model.
Crypto transaction revenue reached $134.3 million in the second quarter, up 10% from the previous quarter. It remained a relatively small part of SoFi’s $1.2 billion in adjusted net revenue, but the partnership shows the company is continuing to invest in crypto-related infrastructure rather than treating digital assets only as a retail trading feature.
The economics may increasingly come from payments, liquidity and institutional services as well as transaction fees. A banking network that can serve exchanges and trading firms continuously could generate deeper relationships with enterprise clients that need both traditional accounts and access to digital-asset markets.
SoFiUSD may also become more useful if it gains listings and settlement integrations beyond SoFi’s own products. Stablecoins generally become more valuable to institutional users when they can be transferred across several venues and redeemed through reliable banking channels.
Why Is Payward Expanding Beyond Kraken?
The agreement also fits Payward’s push beyond its Kraken exchange into custody, payments and regulated financial infrastructure.
In May, Payward applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national trust company charter to establish Payward National Trust Company. Such a structure could support custody and other regulated services for institutional clients if approved.
Kraken Financial, Payward’s Wyoming-chartered bank, also received a Federal Reserve master account in March, giving it direct access to the central bank’s payment system. That access can reduce dependence on intermediary banks for some payment functions and strengthens Payward’s ability to build infrastructure around dollar settlement.
Taken together, the SoFi agreement, the trust charter application and Kraken Financial’s access to Federal Reserve payments point toward a business model that extends well beyond exchange fees. Payward is increasingly building connections between banking rails, institutional trading and crypto custody, while SoFi is using digital assets to deepen its enterprise banking offering.
The result is a partnership in which both companies are trying to own more of the infrastructure behind crypto transactions rather than only the customer-facing trade.