SoFi Technologies and Payward, parent of crypto exchange Kraken, agreed to wire SoFi’s real-time banking settlement network into Kraken’s digital-asset plumbing. The deal puts a SoFi-branded stablecoin on Kraken’s order book. The Block
Payward joins the SoFi Exchange Network, or SEN, the settlement rail SoFi rolled out in April 2026 under its “Big Business Banking” banner, and the arrangement has SoFi tapping Kraken Prime for additional liquidity on crypto trades routed through its own app while Kraken lists SoFiUSD and institutional clients settle dollar transfers between the two networks around the clock, seven days a week.
The numbers tell you why SoFi is moving. Crypto transaction revenue hit $134.3 million in Q2 2026. A 10% jump from Q1. Still, that figure sits inside $1.2 billion in adjusted net revenue for the same quarter. Crypto is real. It is also a minority contributor to the top line.
Payward has been stacking infrastructure moves for months. Kraken Financial, the firm’s Wyoming-chartered bank, picked up a Federal Reserve master account in March 2026. Direct access to the central bank’s payment system. Two months later, in May, Payward filed with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national trust company charter. The entity: Payward National Trust Company. Both steps predate the SoFi agreement. Read the deal as connective tissue between two already-licensed rails, not a greenfield build.
“Money and markets are converging into a new financial paradigm, and the infrastructure underneath has to catch up,” Payward Co-CEO David Ripley said in a statement shared with The Block. He added that “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.”
The play is distribution. SoFi has the deposit accounts, the paycheck flows. Kraken has the order book and custody stack.
What the statement does not say: whether the two firms split revenue on trades routed through Kraken Prime, or on SoFiUSD issuance. Financial terms went undisclosed, and neither company gave a timeline for the SEN connection or the stablecoin listing. SoFi did not provide an executive quote in the statement The Block reviewed.
The direction is legible enough. Banks have spent two years bolting on crypto trading through third-party integrations. This deal stitches the back end together at the settlement layer, where dollar movements and asset transfers happen in the same window. The 24/7 claim matters. Traditional bank wires stop on weekends and after close. That gap pushed crypto traders toward stablecoins and private settlement networks years ago.
SoFiUSD on Kraken adds another stablecoin to a market where issuance is concentrated among a handful of operators. The statement said nothing about reserves or the issuance model. It did not name a blockchain. Without those details, SoFiUSD is a name and a listing venue. Not a product with auditable backing.
Ripley’s “converging” language papers over unresolved mechanics. An application for a national trust charter is not the same as an approval. And a Fed master account, by itself, does not make a crypto bank a settlement counterparty for every institution on SEN. Substance depends on execution details neither company released.
Traders will watch the volume.
No SoFi executive was quoted. The companies did not say whether the arrangement is exclusive. CoinDesk reported the partnership independently, but its article could not be accessed for this report.
