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Kraken Parent Payward Teams Up With Franklin Templeton to Build Tokenized Yield Products and Integrate BENJI

By Isaac • May 15, 2026 8:35 pm • Comments

Payward, the parent company of Kraken and the developer of the xStocks tokenized equities framework, announced a strategic collaboration with Franklin Templeton on May 12. The deal pairs a $1.74 trillion traditional asset manager with one of crypto’s largest exchange platforms to build tokenized financial products and push institutional capital onchain.

The collaboration covers tokenized equities, qualified custody, actively managed yield products, and direct access to institutional crypto liquidity through Kraken’s OTC and Prime desks. Payward said the two firms will also work on integrating BENJI, Franklin Templeton’s suite of global tokenized money market funds, across Kraken’s platform for institutional use cases.

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The scope here is broad. Payward brings xStocks, which has processed more than $30 billion in volume since launching in 2025, along with Kraken’s trading infrastructure, custody, and onchain rails.

Franklin Templeton brings decades of asset management and its own tokenization work, including BENJI. The stated goal is making onchain assets more functional for both digital-native and institutional customers.

The Business Wire release laid out the core mechanics behind the collaboration:

Payward is presented as both Kraken’s parent company and the developer of the xStocks tokenized equities framework, while Franklin Templeton is presented as a global investment manager with deep digital asset work already underway. The collaboration is built around bringing traditional financial products onchain and giving them more utility inside digital asset markets, with the two sides combining asset-management experience, crypto-native trading, custody, and onchain infrastructure.

The stated program covers tokenized equities, qualified custody, actively managed yield products, and institutional crypto liquidity through Kraken’s OTC and Prime services. xStocks is highlighted as a framework that has processed more than $30 billion in volume since launching in 2025.

Payward and Franklin Templeton will also work on tokenized yield-focused products for institutional clients and, where permitted, Kraken’s broader user base.

The release ties BENJI into the same institutional use case, while also keeping the important caveats attached: availability varies by jurisdiction, tokenized products are created and distributed by Payward, Franklin Templeton does not issue or distribute tokenized versions of its strategies, and tokenization platforms carry pricing, settlement, redemption, operational, blockchain, and regulatory risk.

The companies said they will develop tokenized yield-focused products aimed at institutional clients and, where permitted, Kraken’s broader user base. That language signals regulatory awareness.

Product availability will vary by jurisdiction, and the release includes clear caveats: Franklin Templeton does not issue or distribute tokenized versions of its strategies, tokenized products are created and distributed by Payward, and tokenization platforms carry operational, pricing, settlement, redemption, blockchain, and regulatory risks.

The Kraken blog gave its own version of the same collaboration:

Kraken frames the work as a push to make traditional financial products usable onchain rather than merely visible there. The company-side explanation puts Payward’s trading, custody, and onchain infrastructure next to Franklin Templeton’s global asset-management and tokenization expertise, then points directly to xStocks, OTC, Prime, and BENJI as the practical rails.

The important point for institutional users is capital movement: tokenized funds are more useful when they can sit next to exchange liquidity, custody, collateral, and settlement workflows.

Kraken also keeps the product language forward-looking. Payward and Franklin Templeton will explore actively managed investments onchain, work on tokenized yield-focused products, and integrate BENJI across institutional use cases to improve utility and capital efficiency in digital markets.

The blog does not present this as a finished consumer rollout, and it repeats the risk posture around product availability, jurisdiction, tokenized asset distribution, operational reliability, pricing, settlement, redemption, regulatory uncertainty, and market volatility.

For context, this collaboration arrives as the tokenized real-world asset space continues to attract heavyweight capital. Franklin Templeton has been one of the most active traditional managers in blockchain-native fund infrastructure, and Kraken’s parent betting on xStocks and institutional prime services shows where the exchange sees long-term revenue.

Connecting BENJI’s tokenized money market funds to Kraken’s exchange and custody stack gives institutional clients a clearer path from fiat yield products to onchain settlement.

The deal is a strategic framework, and finished retail products have yet to launch from it. But a crypto exchange parent with $30 billion in tokenized equities volume and a $1.74 trillion asset manager building together sends a concrete signal about where institutional tokenization is heading.

The plumbing is getting built.

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